Windy!
 

I'm fascinated by this site:

https://www.windy.com/

You can look at wind patterns around the world and zoom in on your area to see what the wind is doing, and adjust different settings to look at different things.

I'm watching a typhoon right now, but also fascinating for me is the confirmation that Tasmania sits right in the middle of a massive wind pattern. No wonder it is so windy here. I'm guess that's the Roaring 40s.



This is also an interesting site showing wind patterns:

https://earth.nullschool.net/

Click on the word "Earth" for different settings, and click anywhere on the globe to see the wind speed for that spot. Use your scroll to zoom in and out.

Now i can plan my strava kom domination muuuhaahaaa !!!!!!!!

pretty too! that south Pacific area is really active! & interesting to see the feeding flow off the Atlantic into the Florence storm sitting on the US Carolinas

also fun to rotate the "globe" showing just how far away places are from ea. other

thanks for the share!

Very cool!

I thought this was a windchaser thread. Though I guess it is, in a way.

Will have to check later on after sunrise and see how that affects things, as the only wind in California right now seems to be over the ocean.

Yes!!

Or plan that one-way tailwind century ride. :D

If you click on the weather tab on the side of a Strava activity (on the desktop version, that is) you can view Wind, Temp, Clouds, Humidity. The data comes from Windy.com. It's pretty neat.

I use Weather Underground for pre-ride wind prediction. It's usually very close, at least for directionality, the most important part.

I use an app called Epic Ride on my phone (Android). It's geared to Stava and let's you look a previous routes or rides and at a glance see meteorological impacts at a glance such as temp, precipitation likelihood, wind direction and strength. Strength is presented by thickness of the direction arrows. You can adjust date and time. Pretty neat, very handy.

Very similar to this site, which I use frequently. Unfortunately, it only seems to cover the U.S.

Wind Map

I used a different, but similar, site before. Seems like the data is always an hour or two behind though.

Interesting data, but I found all it did for me was give me some anxiety about going out when it's strong headwind.

I hear ya, that's when I make new route. 😁

thanks for the share!

Can someone explain what the "wind gust kt" means?

That would be most helpful to me when cycling in cold winter weather.

Thanks

Wind gust kt would be the top wind speed recorded for that date, in knots. So just a single gust.

I look at the sustained wind speeds, which don't become an issue until it's +12mph. Below that is annoying, but constant 12mph and above is simply demoralizing. I'll at the very least change routes.

Huh.

Looks like there's another tropical storm coming off the coast of Africa. You can see the rotation in it.

I use Intellicast. I think it's funny that Weather Underground named themselves that, since there was a radical left-wing militant organization which called itself that back in the 60's & 70's.

Nice. Thank you.

I have my own weather station 34' off the ground so I have actual wind speed/gust/direction, rain fall, temperature and humidity at my fingertips :) My station is also connected to Weather Underground but I prefer to view it from weewx running off a Raspberry Pie :)

I have a home weather station as well, but that's really only helpful if I'm planning on riding around the neighborhood. I want to know what the wind is going to be doing in 2 hours, however many miles away, when I'm about to start my return leg, so I can adjust my route accordingly.

Unless there's a feature I'm not aware of, Weather Underground shows wind speed/direction from stations like yours and mine. How does that help you understand what the wind speed/direction will look like in 2 hours?

For that, I use Weather Network hourly weather forecast.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca...ontario/ottawa

Their radar map is also pretty good at predicting when and where rain is going to hit.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca...current-future

I've been using the Windy app for about a year to plan rides and attempts at KOMs and PRs. Very handy. It's helpful for visualizing why simplistic wind indicators on other weather apps are misleading. Often the wind is swirling and changing directions quickly so it's not just our imagination that some rides feel like headwinds all the way.