Understanding Wind Forecast
Understanding Wind Forecast
Understanding Wind Forecast : Video Transcript
Hi everyone, Christian here from KiteBud
In this video we will learn how check the wind forecast using the website Windy.com. This video will be especially useful for you if you are new to wind forecasting or new to this website.
We will be browsing Windy from their website on a PC, but the interface will be similar if you are using their app which you can download from the App store for apple devices or Google Play for android devices.
While it may not be the easiest wind forecasting website to use and understand, Windy has become a clear favorite for us for four main reasons:
- It’s very accurate as it’s the only Website using the ECMWF model (which we will explain later)
- It’s free
- It doesn’t use ads
- It works anywhere around the World
Windy has many advanced features, however, in this video we will only cover the basic ones to do with wind forecasting.
If you haven’t done it already, open your web browser and type in windy.com. You should get to a page looking like this. It will probably automatically locate your area, but if it doesn’t simply zoom in to your part of the World. We will choose our home spot which is just North of the City of Perth in Western Australia.
At the bottom of your screen you will see a timeline displayed where you can choose any date and time for the next 10 days.
For example, if I click on Monday the 6th at 2pm I can see with the animation that we will have wind coming from the South or South West which is an ideal wind direction for us.
The colors will give you a quick indication of the wind speed. As you can see at the bottom right corner of your screen, a blue color would indicate winds between zero and 10 knots, green color wind between 10 and 20 knots and orange color winds between 20 and 30 knots, and so on.
To find out the exact wind speed just click on the screen in your kite spot, you can then see that for Monday at 2pm we would be expecting about 17 knots of wind. If we go on the top right corner where it says wind gusts and click on it, we can see that we could be expecting wind gusts of up to 27 knots. By zooming out, we can get an overview of the weather system that is generating that wind. In our case we can easily find out that on that day we will have a cold front coming from the southern Indian ocean which explains why the wind will be so gusty.
Note that by clicking the wind speed legend on the bottom right corner this you can change the wind units from the default which is in Knots, to beaufort, Meters per second, miles per hour or kilometers per hour.
Just above this, you will see two buttons. By default, windy displays the ECMWF model which stands for European Center for Medium range weather forecast. This is a commercial model and arguably the most accurate one for wind forecasting around the World. We’re lucky to get it for free on this website. It is updated every 12 hours.
You can also switch to the GFS model which is a basic free model and the one that the vast majority of wind forecasting websites use around the World. The downside of this model is that it tends to not be as accurate as the ECMWF model.
To get even more details about the forecast, click on your area then click on the drop-down arrow. This will give you an overview of the weather and the wind for the next 6 days. If we click on Wind, we will quickly be able to compare 3 different wind models between each other and also get access to local weather stations for live wind readings.
Another way to access live wind readings in your area, is to go to the bottom right corner of your screen and click on the windsock logo. This will show you all the different live wind reading in your area.
By clicking on More Layers, you will see a lot more options. For example, you can see the webcams in your area. You can also see all the kite spots around the World which is great especially for travelling. There are a lot more options that you can explore and I’m sure there will keep adding more features in the future.
Thank you for watching and I hope that you found this video useful. Please share your comments or questions below. If you enjoy our videos be sure to like and subscribe to our channel.
In the next video, we will learn how to setup and pack up your kite as well as all the equipment terminology.
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