
Show HN: The new Windria – 2-5km precision wind forecasts - timedivers
https://windria.net/map#new
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willmacdonald
Awesome site. Is there any sort of API ? I'd love to build a surf
predictor/alert for Stockholm, which is very dependent on wind.

I noticed a UX bug here: [http://snpy.in/E34hR9](http://snpy.in/E34hR9)

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timedivers
Hi William

Thanks for reporting the bug. Yes there is an API, let's talk via email: info
AT windria DOT net

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crabl
Phenomenal work! I live in a city known for its sporadic gusts and high wind
speeds (no surfing around here, unfortunately!), so this will be quite useful!
I'm also interested in an API, so I'd like to get in touch with you as well.

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timedivers
Certainly, just shoot us an email to info at :)

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zoner
Interesting. WRF is the model that RASP uses - so surface winds should be
similar. It would be nice to have higher level winds there, too, although
since that's a sailing site this is probably not a priority for the people
behind the site.

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timedivers
We use the WRF-ARW core for some regions, it's a solid model. Haven't
considered higher level winds, are you a pilot/paraglider? :)

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vividmind
Glider pilot here. The website looks awesome! Thank you for it! If you guys
could add winds at higher levels, it would really be useful for all kinds of
sky sailors as well.

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Dangeranger
When I was working for electrical utilities and tracking climate data over a
service territory a service like this with an API would have been invaluable.
I would have thrown money hand over fist at them. Particularly if I could
predict accurately micro-conditions within the next 12-24 hours.

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timedivers
The microconditions are tricky, but yes there is business there. We've done a
few proof of concepts using CV + ML/statistics in the area of storm tracking.

Do you have any insight into what the electrical utilities companies are doing
these days in terms of weather forecasting?

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Dangeranger
At the time I was using the National Climatic Data Center's datasets from AWOS
and ASOS and combining that with locally sourced airport weather stations,
mobile micro-climate stations, and helicopter mounted climate collection
systems. It was a lot of fun... :(

We were evaluating using a service provider such as Weather Underground or AWS
Truepower. But those providers couldn't deliver the granularity or locality of
collection that we needed for our obligations.

The utility industry required aerial LiDAR collection to be partnered with
same time collection of local climate conditions for use in modeling the
impact of wind/solar/temp on conductor line sag. We did a bunch of pioneering
work in that area back in 2012.

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mecer
Very impressive. Temperature seems a bit broken for extreme cold weathers
though [http://imgur.com/dRPFgs4](http://imgur.com/dRPFgs4)

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simcop2387
Yikes, 502C? I think most things we use would burst into flames by then.

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bbayer
I am wondering how wind directions are calculated? Is there a realistic model
that uses height maps and fluid dynamics or just a simple one for visual
purposes?

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timedivers
There are many different models, all of them taking into account terrain data,
laws of physics and much more:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_weather_prediction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_weather_prediction)

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Brakenshire
Does that mean you can possibly also get indications of gusting in direction
as well as speed from the terrain? That would be really useful for sailing,
particularly inland. Or maybe that's a more local effect, and beyond the
resolution of these models?

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btbuildem
"Please signup"? No thanks.. There's very impressive alternatives that don't
want my email.

eg: [https://www.windyty.com/](https://www.windyty.com/)

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seanp2k2
I currently pay for iKiteSurf and this could be a viable alternative if it's
accurate. iKSurf does actually place miniature weather stations at kite
beaches though, so it might be hard to match that accuracy.

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billybofh
It's giving me what look like _quite_ unlikely wind conditions (FF42/Linux) :
[https://imgur.com/QejZqTY](https://imgur.com/QejZqTY)

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timedivers
That looks like a rendering problem, we will look into it!

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billybofh
No worries - the only thing I did was slide the time forward by a couple of
hours - it was rendering ok before that :-)

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xyclos
I didn't get a prompt asking for permission to use my location, yet the map
was already focused over my location (though the loaded city text was wrong).
Any idea what is going on here?

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timedivers
We use your IP to determine your approximate location. Not very precise, but
useful because it puts at least in the right country/state, so you don't have
to search for it :)

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wstrange
As a kitesurfer - this is awesome! Really well done.

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anc84
You might want to use some color scales that are perceptually uniform. Right
now you are using the bad kind of rainbow for many.

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timedivers
Any pointers where we could look? (we are not designers..)

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josephhardin
If you google matplotlib viridis there is a discussion of the issue. Using
perceptually uniform colormaps(not to mention ones that translate to gray
scale correctly) is normally the correct thing to do, but not always.
Sometimes you want to highlight particular conditions. For instance, jet with
radar data tends to nicely separate different atmospheric conditions if set up
right. The same perceptual colormap version feels somehow lacking.

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imaginenore
What's the source of your data? I get quite different predictions on
WindFinder and WindGuru.

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timedivers
Depends on the area. Windfinder and Windguru are using the GFS model which has
a resolution of only 50/100km.

For example for winds, in the US we are using NOAAs HIRESW with a resolution
of 5km and in Europe we are using mostly WRF models from national agencies
with 2-10km resolution depending on area.

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foofoo55
Windfinder's Superforecast has a 12km resolution:

[http://www.windfinder.com/help#superforecast](http://www.windfinder.com/help#superforecast)

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markbnj
Extremely well done. Good job guys.

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fnberlin
great!

