I’ve been using Windyty since it’s launch. As a sailor, the visuals were extremely critical in planning passages. Where we could plan down to the minute of when to make course and sailplan changes.<p>Now we’re on land and I’ve introduced to it to my colleagues. While I can read weatherfaxes, gribs, and navtexes it would take a full for your average layperson to read and interpret that data. Windy makes it very easy for anyone to conceptualize weather models and create their own predictions.
As a paragliding pilot, this is one of the best weather resources for me (along with <a href="https://meteo-parapente.com/" rel="nofollow">https://meteo-parapente.com/</a>). Fantastic visualizations, fantastic data sources.<p>Note: Depending on your region, it might be a good idea to compare forecasts of different weather model. GFS with its 22km resolution is not well-suited for forecasts in the mountains, where the model may completely "overlook" an entire (large) valley. Weather phenomena like the Föhn are also not modelled well. ECMWF with 9km resolution is often better. In the alps, I've had good experience with NEMS (by Meteoblue) as well as COSMO by Meteoswiss (which is not (yet?) available on Windy).<p>Overview over the prediction models: <a href="https://community.windy.com/topic/12/what-source-of-weather-data-windy-use" rel="nofollow">https://community.windy.com/topic/12/what-source-of-weather-...</a>
My go to weather app, along with Dark Sky. Can't say enough good things about it. Constantly updated with new, useful features.<p>There's something to be said for a software company not taking a ton of VC money, hiring hundreds of people, and shutting down in 3-4 years. From the last photo they have a ~10 person team.
GUI-wise Windy is nice, but for a good forecast I prefer <a href="https://www.meteoblue.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.meteoblue.com</a>, e.g. <a href="https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/forecast/multimodelensemble/zurich_switzerland_2657896" rel="nofollow">https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/forecast/multimodelense...</a><p>Although the wind map of meteoblue looks good, too: <a href="https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/forecast/windmap/zurich_switzerland_2657896" rel="nofollow">https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/forecast/windmap/zurich...</a>
The author is also the founder and owner of a local Google-like company (search, email, maps, media, etc.), that's where he gets the funding for Windy.
Off Topic:<p>I thought the forum was running on Discourse, but turns out to be something called NodeBB, first time I heard of it, it is similar in design, and I think it felt slightly faster / snapier than Discourse.
Thought for a second someone had posted this on HN: <a href="https://fridababy.com/products/windi" rel="nofollow">https://fridababy.com/products/windi</a> - Which is a bit of a hack in itself, and one that I'm sure would have generated some interesting responses.
We use this website in oceanography to understand what kind of weather conditions our buoys are in. Off the coast of greenland this is helpful to shunt the wind turbines in extreme wind - not because they can't handle the wind, but because the waves crash on the spinning blades and shatter them.