I would be interested in alerts when a particular value combination arises in the forecast.

The overall alert condition is a combination of several subexpressions.

let me lay out the idea by example:

given:
location1, location2, location3, time-of-day1, time-of-day2
maxtemp

if  (temperature(location1, time-of-day1, surface) < maxtemp) AND
    (wind(location1, time-of-day1, surface, IconEU) < 10km/h) AND
    (wind(location2, time-of-day2, FL180, ECMWF) > 80 km/h) AND
    (wind_direction(location2, time-of-day2,FL180, ECMWF) between 290 and 20 degrees)) AND
    (wind(location3, time-of-day3, surface, IconEU) < 10km/h) AND
    (temperature(location2, time-of-day1, surface) < maxtemp)

then
   create alert("Alps crossing possible")

having this done once nightly looking into the future as far as models provide that would be super useful.

I admit the parameterization is complex and probably pushing the envelope for a mobile gui - it might be more productive to address the issue algorithmically (plugin idea!)

thanks for this great tool!

Assuming the average alert user is as clueless about Javascript as I am:

a framework feature for generating alarms, and a set of predefined, selectable (possibly user-contributed) JS fragments (really condition expressions) which can be parameterized:

that would go a long way without the complexity of a full-blown programming language based solution

I thought you might like this:

a local flight in Styria last month:
https://cesium.com/cesiumjs/cesium-viewer/?source=https://static.mah.priv.at/cors/stiwoll-muggauberg.czml

two balloons crossing the Alps late last year:
https://cesium.com/cesiumjs/cesium-viewer/?source=https://static.mah.priv.at/cors/filzmoos-treviso-oesoe-oesfy.czml

the trajectory lines are generated from the GPX files the windy-traj plugin offers as download, the flight tracks are actual GPS data

motivational screenshot of the latter flight:

and here is a 360° video of that flight:

note the whole animation is encapsulated in a single CZML file and just uses the public CesiumViewer service from the Cesium project

• Michael

ps: for the curious: this documents arguments to the CesiumViewer

Re: anybody working on a trajectory plugin?

is that planned to work eventually?
will it never work for some reason?

thanks! pawed through the FAQ and articles - couldnt find an answer

The most prestigious gas balloon race in the world is the annual Gordon Bennet Cup

Pilots stay aloft for several days and might cross the continent

To get an idea, here's a video of the tracks flown this year:

The teams have (and need!) a ground crew which advises pilots on weather and tactics

This year, windy and traj were part of the games - in the ground support for the Belgian, Spanish and US teams - Kolja Packard wrote up a field report (he was part of the support team and worked the weather forecasts):

(this is still german-only, I will post an english translation shortly and notify here):

https://blog.mah.priv.at/index.php/2019/10/01/erfahrungsbericht-einsatz-von-windy-beim-gordon-bennet-cup/

In particular, have a look at the very first image in the blog post - this was the track forecast 20 hours (!) before takeoff

compare that to the youtube video above - the match is amazing!

Many thanks to Kolja in writing this up!

have you considered turning off notifications for a start?

@rittels Thanks for this phenomenal job!

this is already very useful - will do a balloon ride tomorrow early morning and see how that fares relative to the plot!

If I may add a suggestion:

if you select several altitudes on the plot it is hard to discern which track belongs to which altitude

why not choose different colors for each track in the plot and color the altitudes in 'Select levels' accordingly?

• Michael

semi-related: I wrote up a tutorial on Alps crossings with a hot air balloon as there is next to zero material available on the issue

it gives an idea of the meteorological prerequisites: http://static.mah.priv.at/public/alpcrossing/assets/player/KeynoteDHTMLPlayer.html#0

(suggestions for improvement and bug reports welcome)

Here's something neat: visualize an expected balloon flight in 3D based on a windy trajectory:

https://ayvri.com/scene/49j7m8dzje/cjzp38qi200013d5vtyo4jj3j

The GPX file was created with windy.com and the traj plugin. It includes an ascent and descent phase of 2m/s and level flight at 1500m. The GPX file was then uploaded to ayvri.com (free account required).

The ayvri visualization is based on cesium.js - for the curious, play here: https://cesiumjs.org/Cesium/Apps/Sandcastle/index.html?src=CZML Path.html

Here's another long jump - from today

435km in under 4hrs, peak 80kts - and phenomenal forecast accuracy!

https://blog.mah.priv.at/gpsvisualizer/20200105044229-47167-map.html

@ivo if I may add a suggestion:

The recent ICON/ICON-xx come in several distribution forms, two of which are:

• standard pressure levels (1000hPa, 950/925 etc )
• "half height levels" (= 65 layers which seem to be geodaetic heights, not pressure levels)

for the vertically oriented (=aviation folk of various shapes and forms) the higher resolution would be useful - at least in the "VFR layers" (= below 5000m)

it comes at a storage + processing cost though

@ivo Superb - very good move!

@korina It turns out Kachelmann is on the trail already:

@justinlimbo seconded - it is the best short-term hires model around and I really recommend adopting it, it would be a major USP

I've been using COSMO-D2 for ground condition forecasts before flights for years and it has been the most spot-on of the whole lot

Unfortunately so far it's been available only via PC-met or the occasional off-beat weather website

NB for aviation folk: the DWD models sport much higher vertical resolution internally (65 levels) than just the standard pressure levels

well it shows data again, so it seems to be released from lockdown ;)

https://www.windy.com/station/pws-f076f530?47.134,15.218,14

hi,

I managed to bungle the feed from f076f530 on Friday 12-2 morrnings
I have since restored the configuration, but do not see recent data in windy

now I'd guess it makes sense to observe a new or reappeared station for a while before showing the data, but I'm unsure if my station actually feeds data

how can I check the feed status on the windy side?

best regards
Michael

Re: what about a 3D weather viewer?

are you still going down this path @ivo?

best regards

Michael

@mhaberler Here's a proof of concept using the ICON-D2 short term weather model from DWD.de - grid 2km, about 35 elevation levels below 5000m - way beyond other models in horizontal and vertical resolution:

here you can play live with it - zoom in and click on wind arrows

@mhaberler

it might not be that hard to integrate client-side reading of gribs for the determined

I could read ICON-D2 wind u/v gribs just fine with this JS library: https://github.com/UdSAES/grib2-simple

@curtis2010 I agree - reading grib files would be superb @ivo @rittels

It would potentially fix a few issues with windy:

• enable usage of models which are currently not supported in the stock windy models - for example the upcoming ICON-D2 (sequel to Cosmo-D2) which is very high resolution (2.2km, 27hrs in 3hr steps) and covers quite some Europe (page 12)
• it could fix the 'no history in windy' issue - by viewing and downloading archived gribs
• in the case of the trajectory plugin, it could improve both horizontal as well as vertical resolution substantially - for instance, ICON-D2 hast some 91 levels of which about 25 are in the 0-6000m regions which is relevant for me
• enable viewing values which are not in the stock windy layers set. Example: the vertical wind component in ICON-D2.

I concur that the 'market' of current grib reader apps is ready for some disruption...

I'd not necessarily be asking the windy folks to "support that feature" by taking on the load of supporting an extra model or new layers. That is substantial effort.

However, a blessed route to achieve this by say an API to introduce custom layers and data sources - maybe via a plugin and a local WMS server á la SkinnyWMS serving gribs would be great!

Michael