THR Basics: From displaying isolines to changing data visualizations, here’s the beginner’s guide to using the Windy widget.
We’ve embedded the Windy app on the site in a few places—the sidebar and the conditions and forecasts page. As a habit forming species, weather forecasting workflows differ from user to user. Still, some of us may subscribe to predictive services like Open Snow, while others may not. Windy offers a suite of free functions that, depending on your needs, make it high-functioning for the beginner to intermediate meteorologist. In this series, we’ll run through a few of Windy’s functions so readers are more familiar with the app and can, at their own pace, add different datasets, predictive models, and visuals to their trip planning routine.
The Presets
On THR, Windy is preset to display new snow. We focus on skiing, so that makes sense. If your home region is not shown on the default display, changing that on the fly is easy. Click a trackpad or mouse on a computer, or touch a finger on a phone, and drag to your desired region. You can toggle the +/- buttons in the upper right corner to zoom in and out. A “play” button is displayed on the lower left. Click this and the widget displays a “new snow” forecast several days out. (At the time of publication, its looks rather snow free in the continental U.S. and more wintery further north. And if you are a European reader, it looks as if some parts of the Alps are getting a refresh.)
From here, Windy becomes a data miner’s treasure trove. Again, the default is to display new snow. To change that setting, click the snowflake icon on the upper right. A menu drops down with a selection of potential data displays. Some displays useful for making turns on snow include snow depth, temperature, wind, and pressure. Now, click on the data you want displayed.
Let’s get slightly more complex. Say you want to display pressure with isobars on the homepage. Here’s the sequence. Click the snowflake, then click “pressure” in the dropdown. Next, scroll down a bit and click the “more layers” option. Another more comprehensive dropdown menu is now on offer. You’ll see a small sub-menu where you can choose to display isolines. (The Windy widget on the Regional Conditions and Forecasts page defaults to display pressure isolines.)
Below is our THR Windy widget video tutorial.
If you choose the “snow depth” data, knowing how Windy derives those values is good. (The depth values include depth and a density reading.) According to a moderator on the Windy community message board, “Snow depth is computed by weather model, and it is the accumulation of old snow + next snow falls, less natural compaction and melting of the snow cover. For this reason, this layer shows the snow density, too.”
Further along in the moderator’s response (cited above) to a user’s query is the qualifier that the snow depth data displayed is general and not 100% accurate or real-time—meaning go elsewhere if you are trying to determine how much pow was deposited on the local zone.
Also, in either the “new snow” or “snow depth” modes, one can click on a point and glean point-specific data. The point will display a small yellow flag. Click on the flag, and an extended weather forecast displays for that point location.
The navigation details outlined so far are for modifying the embedded widgets on The High Route. For a larger view of Windy and a greater ability to modify the display, head over to windy.com. Next in the series, we’ll explore the weather models on Windy’s web platform.
