In a few years the site Windy has achieved the feat of positioning itself as a benchmark for weather forecasting around the world. An exploit all the more remarkable since it reaches an extremely large audience ranging from people without any knowledge on the subject to the most seasoned forecasters, including enthusiasts or heavy users (board sports, water sports, etc.) . Windy is a must-have and he deserves it.
But in the end, what is this site actually doing? few people ultimately know what Windy is and where it stands in the weather forecasting production chain. This is the subject that I am going to tackle today to allow this site to be used wisely, but without making it into a kind of guru (that's a snap, some will recognize it 😉) of meteorology.
A little quick history
Windy is a Czech company (like WindGuru .. we have to believe that the Czechs are more passionate about weather than others!) Founded in 2014, so very young. It was the first on a large scale to display weather data in the form of animated particles, which greatly contributed to the playfulness of its use and therefore to its success. Previously, the reference sites in this field used presentation in the form of much more austere tables.
This presentation is largely inspired by a very interesting older project: https://earth.nullschool.net/ who was the first to launch this mode of visualizing meteorological data on a global scale. But Windy took it to a whole new level in terms of available data volume and interface.
What Windy does
Windy is above all a monstrous “vacuum cleaner” of meteorological data of all kinds. Its main activity is therefore to collect raw data, store it and make it available in an understandable and relevant form. It is both a Big Data tool, a genius translator and a messenger. And we must recognize his formidable quality in these three areas in which he excels more than any other.
Its very clean and very intuitive graphical interface is a model of its kind. It allows everyone, from the neophyte to the weather enthusiast “nerd”, to find the information they are looking for quite simply and quickly. This information can be very graphic and user-friendly on the maps, but also very extensive and more austere on the dedicated boards. But above all, this information covers the broadest field ever offered by a general public meteorological and atmospheric data site.
If you are looking for public weather information, it is almost certain that it will be available. And that's also part of the strength of this site.
What Windy does not do
Windy does a lot of things by making an almost unlimited amount of data available. And we cannot thank this site enough for that. But on the other hand there are 2 essential things that it does not do and which are nevertheless essential in tropical cyclonic weather: The crossing of data to assess trends and analyze conditions. And that he just can't do, because he's a machine. Even though it is very efficient, it does not know how to do what the forecasters do. NHC for example. And she shouldn't know how to do it anytime soon.
It is in fact the big limit for the use of this site in hurricane season for territories at risk. Windy just repeats the data that has been created by other computersbe it forecast models, radar or satellite imagery. He repeats but does not create. He repeats but does not analyze. He repeats but doesn't understand what he repeats.
When to use Windy
"Windy said ..."
Basically someone comes to explain that the NHC must have been wrong because “Windy said" something else. But as I explained above, Windy doesn't say anything he created himself. Windy just repeats what a forecast model says. If the model is wrong, Windy will be just as wrong. It's that simple.
Finally, I will use the quote from an expert in severe weather phenomena whose name I do not remember:
Any claim about the future of a cyclone in a few days is by definition false. Even if it turns out to be verified later.
So do with Windy in terms of hurricane forecasting what you should do with all other sources: don't blindly trust it!
In the next few days 2 video tutorials on the use of Windy will be posted. A first tutorial for basic use and a second for advanced use. Stay Connected!
