I followed the guide here, and connected my weewx instance (Hardware: raspberry and Davis Vantage Pro) in literally 10 minutes.

Assume I'd want to write a tutorial-style document on how to use a plugin

What would be the place to put it?
Should I use Markdown?

@ivo I've been using Brave (Chrome-based) recently and Windy works flawlessly

(the spam checker flagged the second image as spam - see directly at http://static.mah.priv.at/traj/0.2.8/)

@rittels is doing a superb job on the traj plugin (currently at 0.2.8) - it is progressing very fast

I'm just Joe User here, so let me give you an example where things stand and others can reproduce -

Assumptions:

• a balloon ride starting July 11local at my home in Stiwoll, Austria
• simulate all flight levels up to FL180
• simulate with all three available models: ECMWF, ICON-EU and GFS
• do this without simulated ascent/descent
• do this with 3m/s ascent and descent
• save the resulting GPX files (2 sets of 3 files)
• convert those to KML with https://www.gpsvisualizer.com/map_input?form=googleearth
• load the kmz's into Google Earth and screenshot those

all artefacts can be found here: http://static.mah.priv.at/traj/0.2.8/

Google Earth screenshots without ascent/descent simulation:

with 3m/s ascent and descent:

gpsvisualizer parameter settings:

@TalkeetnaAirTaxi That's what you get when you elect a cat as mayor ;-)

this came out phenomenal - really useful!

@johnckealy yes, historical data for would not be relevant back more than a few days. But then I am just an amateur pilot.

aviation briefing: well Air traffic control organsations run weather briefing and flight planning services, like for instance Nav Canada - I guess in the UK it's https://www.nats.aero

@johnckealy said in Users of Windy: why do you want historical weather data?:

Thanks for the comments @mhaberler. You've hit on an important concept here. Is there such a thing as a "historical weather forecast"? You seems to be alluding to model data. The important question is this – could you have avoided a dangerous situation if you had looked at the forecast an hour before flying vs. 3 days before flying? Which model run is the one to reference?

that is the secondary goal

First, I would love our wonderful and super-expensive ATC corporations would provide their forecasts not just from today onwards, but a couple of days back. Just what they publish on their aviation briefing website. That would cover 90% of my learning needs. Could I have avoided that situation if I had read the aviation briefing more diligently? Note: no historical 'data', no fancy UI and yadayada - JUST their briefs. So wrong forum here.

the other 10% of my needs would be going back in time for a few days max and look for stuff which was NOT in the aviation briefs. For instance, the accident linked above was due to a cold are pressure wave within the inversion layer, and it was NOT in the aviation briefs.

Let me ask you this @mhaberler, what level of detail would you need to "see if you could have avoided a situation"? Highs and lows? Surface winds? Gusts? Winds at all levels? Precipitation? Visibility? As gridded data or just at airfields? I have some aviation forecasting experience, but we were very focused on just our own airfields, and the WAFC/LOLAN guys used to take care of the rest.

I know.. the aviation weather forecasts are of so-so for ballooning and of moderate value at best if you do long-distance/high altitude. Example: predicting northerly föhn a few days ahead - in reality you get hints for föhn-affected terminal areas like Innsbruck and not much beyond.

For a short-range check a few hours before a pedestrian flight I mostly do precipitation, visibility, clouds/fog, average wind, wind gusts, shears. An important value for us is winds/gusts in the planned landing area, and here forecasts outside of large airports scarce and unreliable - we replace that by webcam views (sometimes you can judge wind that way), private weather stations, and experience about typical valley wind systems.

for long-distance over mountains a lot more is involved - vertical profiles, soundings, wave prediction, sometimes even likelyhood of a hydraulic jump. For longer-term prediction Rossby waves in the FL180 Geopotential forecast help - black line cutting the Alps N/S is a good predictor a few days out. As the flight comes closer, you look at the more local phenomena - ground wind etc like for a pedestrian flight.

nice animations made possible with the traj plugin: