Anyone use windy.com

[cliffy]

On 3/1/2021 at 3:21 AM, Ibra said:

For en-route weather? I did not know you were flying that low cliffy  

I use Windy it’s just a nice big data visualisation tool (not a forecasting tool), and one single shop for everything, it works well once you get to understand what goes into few main layers & formulas/limits otherwise the other zillions of features is like a full kitchen sink 

I guess I don't know how I survived before the internet and iPhones. I presume now that I was in real danger flying from KVNY the KBFI and back in '65 in my Cessna 140 with only a SuperHomer radio with 21 crystals to transmit on with BFO tuning and a 1 weak VOR receiver and a paper chart. Time to start counting the beads (OH and they weren't called TAFs and METARs back then either  :-) :-)

[RobertGary1]

On 2/25/2021 at 10:38 PM, Niko182 said:

The webcams they have around the US are also a really nice touch.

In California the cal fire cams are amazing. 

[802flyer]

I've been using the CB version of Windy for a while now, and have found it super helpful in the big picture planning mentioned above. Being able to scroll through time and get a general idea of the clouds/winds/precip then allows me to focus on particular regions to scrutinize more carefully when planning a longer trip. I recently decided to upgrade to Premium and have been exploring the features a bit more thoroughly, and came across a few that I figured I'd share.

Certain aspects are quite intuitive but other features are definitely hidden in odd places. I recently found the button in the upper right corner that allows you to look at sounding/skew-T forecasts throughout the map, and scroll through time to see how they change. This was mentioned on mooneyspace years ago, so clearly I'm late in finding it. But figured this might also be news to people who also hadn't explored the app as thoroughly.

 

I also found that you can drag and drop waypoints along a route, and get a nice cross-sectional depiction of the weather along the route. You can then scroll through time and get a nice depiction of forecast conditions along your exact route. Again, not something to bet your life on, but for a 500nm trip it is helpful to quickly narrow in on the areas that will drive your go/no-go decision so that you can dig deeper.

This stuff has probably been there for a while but I figure/hope that I'm not the last person on earth to find it, and someone else might therefore benefit from posting it.

[Ibra]

I use it regularly in Europe: for 20$/yer one gets regular updates of ECMWF model every 4h, which is gold standard down here...

It's a bit of "kitchen sink" with load of functionalities and light documentation, however, it's the best tool one can have to benchmark against GFS or compare to BBC weather