We are happy that you like windy.com. If you want to help us with this project, then report all issues to community.windy.com We love bug reports from programmers, with all screenshots etc (Ivo)
Windy was coded by billionaire founder and owner of Seznam, which is czech search engine (and media company), one of only three other search engines in the world that still beats Google in local market.
Has he actually coded it himself? Do you have more information?
Seznam is a remarkable company. Their maps (http://mapy.cz) are second to none, my favourite feature are touristic maps which work at least within Europe.
Interesting note, I play a lot of golf competitively, and they've basically recently allowed players in tournaments to use phones (obviously players don't do that much or if at all, concentration and all that).
But the one specific rule is that players can't use their phones to check the weather, and even more specifically the wind direction. Wind makes a huge difference on the course, and being able to know the exact direction of the wind where the ball is flying would be really helpful. Other part is being able to know if the wind shifts during the round. Before you start you can check the wind direction, but if that changes, you could be out of luck. This seems like a perfect golf aide, so much to the point where it's a penalty in a tournament.
Even the best models commonly available will only operate at a 3km resolution, which realistically isn't that much more useful than a 10km or 20km grid for ageostrophic winds (wind not affected by the ground). A model might show you have 8kt winds out of the SSE, but things like water, treelines, hills, etc. could have a large impact on a golf ball.
It'd be easy enough to look at the forecast for a 3km model like the HRRR, but the challenging part would be guessing at how the various features on a course interact with that forecast.
I race sailboats competitively, and obviously wind direction and speed affects the outcome even more.
Electronically, in most classes of boats you're allowed to get any information that's available to anyone (i.e. you can hit any public website, but you can't call your local weatherman to ask his opinion). But really, there's not that much information available for day races (long distance races are a different animal)
One of the things that's become common over the last 10 years or so it to use a forecasting service. Basically you talk with a meterologist each morning or perhaps a few days in advance and they let you know what they expect to happen. You end up with statements like, "If you see big puffy clouds coming in, you should expect the wind to shift to the right of about 30 degrees shortly. But if the clouds don't come in, or you see flat ones, you won't get the shift until the puffy clouds fill in."
They're pretty good at forecasting what will happen over a large area or a day, but for really small areas (a few square miles) or really short periods, they can't be that accurate because the movement of the systems varies in speed and direction too much over short periods.
But try a forecasting service, it really can be helpful to know what's happening around you. Around $100 a day is reasonable last time I did this.
It does not seem precise enough to give you localized condition on that scale. I tried zooming in to see how it was reporting wind and waves I can see from my current location, and there was simply no data once you got down to a range of a few miles.
> exact direction of the wind where the ball is flying would be really helpful
When I did tournaments we would look at the flagstick, trees and also release blades of grass.
I could see near exact speeds helping (could make the difference between putting for birdie vs chipping from off the green) but not any more of an advantage than a rangefinder. Do they let you use a rangefinder in your tournaments or no?
I noticed Windy.com took me straight to this spot due to my location near the approaching storm, so in case you're in a part of the world with a little less going on right now, check out the winds coming to Texas.
Or, conversely, what are the tile maps doing wrong?
I have a 100 Mbps connection and tile weather radar maps are some of the poorest experiences on the web with that speed, too. Why can high-resolution, high-framerate video load fast, but not a map?
This site just went straight to my bookmark list, brilliant.
Small criticism: Every time you move it creates new page entry in the back button list, so once you have moved around a bit you can't use browser back button to easily go back to previous website.
That was my same thought. This is one of the few rare times I don't think using the browser history makes sense for an SPA (at least, in its current implementation).
I wrote in their forums suggesting they add air quality/pollution info and greenhouse gas emissions to their maps and it was done in about three days. I was impressed.
Yeah, I'm a little up and to the left of that (a couple hundred miles inland.)
While the big spinning mass offshore is the headline, the subtitle is that everything east of I-35 is going to get somewhere between a foot and two feet of rain. Not snow, water.
You know what strikes me? Look at the overland place where the winds move quickly. Those are our cities. We're living off whiffs in the aerodynamic backwaters on a world of windy metropoli.
As someone who works with mapping data and web based maps regularly, this website is excellent in terms of usability. The ease of switching overlays, adding symbols, saving selection, adjusting the map are all excellent and intuitive.
The ability to drill down on symbols added in a smooth and sensible way is excellent.
This is how you make web maps for specialist data!
This has been my go-to for sailing conditions for a while. I used other sites before it (Predict Wind, Surf Watch), but Windy is fast and responsive and usable on a phone. The data for sites like these all ultimately come from the same sources (the big weather models) so the differentiators in this space are mostly in the user experience.
[+] [-] ilblog|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dejv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tasuki|8 years ago|reply
Seznam is a remarkable company. Their maps (http://mapy.cz) are second to none, my favourite feature are touristic maps which work at least within Europe.
[+] [-] codewithcheese|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alanh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intruder|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhhaskin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doomlaser|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edaemon|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cordite|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ganeshkrishnan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilblog|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackschultz|8 years ago|reply
But the one specific rule is that players can't use their phones to check the weather, and even more specifically the wind direction. Wind makes a huge difference on the course, and being able to know the exact direction of the wind where the ball is flying would be really helpful. Other part is being able to know if the wind shifts during the round. Before you start you can check the wind direction, but if that changes, you could be out of luck. This seems like a perfect golf aide, so much to the point where it's a penalty in a tournament.
[+] [-] lllr_finger|8 years ago|reply
It'd be easy enough to look at the forecast for a 3km model like the HRRR, but the challenging part would be guessing at how the various features on a course interact with that forecast.
[+] [-] dustinmr|8 years ago|reply
Electronically, in most classes of boats you're allowed to get any information that's available to anyone (i.e. you can hit any public website, but you can't call your local weatherman to ask his opinion). But really, there's not that much information available for day races (long distance races are a different animal)
One of the things that's become common over the last 10 years or so it to use a forecasting service. Basically you talk with a meterologist each morning or perhaps a few days in advance and they let you know what they expect to happen. You end up with statements like, "If you see big puffy clouds coming in, you should expect the wind to shift to the right of about 30 degrees shortly. But if the clouds don't come in, or you see flat ones, you won't get the shift until the puffy clouds fill in."
They're pretty good at forecasting what will happen over a large area or a day, but for really small areas (a few square miles) or really short periods, they can't be that accurate because the movement of the systems varies in speed and direction too much over short periods.
But try a forecasting service, it really can be helpful to know what's happening around you. Around $100 a day is reasonable last time I did this.
[+] [-] brk|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exclusiv|8 years ago|reply
When I did tournaments we would look at the flagstick, trees and also release blades of grass.
I could see near exact speeds helping (could make the difference between putting for birdie vs chipping from off the green) but not any more of an advantage than a rangefinder. Do they let you use a rangefinder in your tournaments or no?
[+] [-] PaulHoule|8 years ago|reply
Ever since tile maps have become the norm, most of the weather radar services are unbearably slow on my DS(Hel)L connection. This loads fast.
I wonder what they are doing right.
[+] [-] stephenhuey|8 years ago|reply
https://www.windy.com/?29.770,-95.363,5
I noticed Windy.com took me straight to this spot due to my location near the approaching storm, so in case you're in a part of the world with a little less going on right now, check out the winds coming to Texas.
[+] [-] LeifCarrotson|8 years ago|reply
I have a 100 Mbps connection and tile weather radar maps are some of the poorest experiences on the web with that speed, too. Why can high-resolution, high-framerate video load fast, but not a map?
[+] [-] penagwin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] n17r4m|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ge96|8 years ago|reply
Does that thing where you hit back and it cancels the loading scripts and site actually runs
[+] [-] dharness|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amai|8 years ago|reply
They get their data from https://www.meteoblue.com/ .
[+] [-] SeanDav|8 years ago|reply
Small criticism: Every time you move it creates new page entry in the back button list, so once you have moved around a bit you can't use browser back button to easily go back to previous website.
[+] [-] rmrfrmrf|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mourner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilblog|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karboosx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godelski|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malloryerik|8 years ago|reply
Btw I think they use Riot.js on their front end?
[+] [-] prh8|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Stratoscope|8 years ago|reply
Yikes.
[+] [-] karlkatzke|8 years ago|reply
While the big spinning mass offshore is the headline, the subtitle is that everything east of I-35 is going to get somewhere between a foot and two feet of rain. Not snow, water.
[+] [-] stanlarroque|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|8 years ago|reply
I would hope FEMA does better this time but recent track record of that agency still is not good.
[+] [-] bojanvidanovic|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sccxy|8 years ago|reply
Which is very cool to track ocean sailing.
I have made several trackers to follow around the world sailing races/adventures.
https://gis.ee/lb/
https://tracker.ee/
[+] [-] aw3c2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rthomas6|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StavrosK|8 years ago|reply
https://techcrunch.com/2013/02/14/weendy-an-extreme-sports-a...
They have since pivoted to something similar, as AFAIK they didn't get enough traction.
[+] [-] abtinf|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ragazzina|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Forties
[+] [-] CharlesDodgson|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmm6o|8 years ago|reply