VC: Blowin' in the Wind
Visualization: Windy.com
Windy.com is a free weather visualization website which provides global, real-time weather info as well as week long forecasts .
Data Source:
Windy.com primarily uses two forecast models for their weather Visualizations,
1) European ECMWF
2) NOAA's GFS
They also provide the option to switch to various localized models depending on the region.
Features:
The dashboard looks like this with filters to the right and an uncluttered, navigable and zoom-able map of the world with the selected filters overlay-ed which makes it easy to get weather info for virtually any region of the world as well as compare between different regions very quickly. There's also the option to toggle lightning/wind animations and sound effects on or off to add some theatricality to the whole experience.
The forecast bar at the bottom lets you jump to any time in the upcoming week and view the forecasted weather for that time. You can also choose to animate the forecast and it will show an hourly animation of the weather patterns.
The user can also switch between various forecast models very easily by choosing from the applicable models in the bottom right corner. The available models change depend on the region the user is currently centered on. (ECMWF and GFS are persistent around the globe)
There is a wide array of filters available not just limited to purely weather information which makes the website useful to a wider.
Let's go over some filters that I believe are particularly helpful.
Temperature- The colour scheme for temperatures does a great job in contrasting between how hot it is in different regions, Blue representing frigid, green is the comfortable range, yellow being warm and red being hot. Clicking on any spot displays a popup with the exact temperature at that spot. The surface slider in the right can be used to choose the altitude for which the temperature is being displayed (default being the surface of-course). The forecast bar is still there to help jumping around between different times of the upcoming week.
Thunderstorm overlay displays active thunderstorm systems in the map. As usual you can click on any spot on the map to get detailed info and the forecast bar for future info.
The rain and snow accumulation overlays have the option to show the total expected rainfall/snowfall in the next 12 hours, 24 hours or 3/5/10 days which again is really handy.
The air quality overlay is another I found really intriguing. You can choose between different AQ metrics like NO2 , PM 2.5 and Aerosol concentrations as well as info about the Ozone layer. Places with bad Air Quality pop out immediately because of the good colour scheme.
Finally they have two different overlays for extreme forecasts and hazardous weather warnings respectively. A huge number of small-medium sized businesses who need to make decisions based on the weather (like logistics providers) but cannot afford to have their own dedicated weather info might find these particularly useful.
The extreme weather overlay has 3 different categories: wind, temperature, and rain. Pictured below is the temperature category. Blue represents extreme cold spots while red is for extremely warm spots. Absence of colour indicates that nothing out of the ordinary is happening there making it easy to grasp where the extremes are and of what kind the extremes are.
Secondly, there is also an overlay for any official weather warnings which have been issued. Yellow, Orange and Red denote the severity. You can click on an a shaded area to bring up information about the warning issued. For example tornado advisories were issued in PA. You can also choose to colorize by type of danger (tornadoes, floods, blizzards etc.)
Utility(what questions the website answers ):
1) Anyone looking to compare and contrast conditions between two regions of the globe might find the website very useful.
2) The fact that it also provides information about warnings and severe weather in addition to regular weather information on a global scale sets the website apart from the plethora of weather options available online.
3) Anyone looking for specific info like Air Quality indices across different cities, ocean temperatures across the globe, wave information can quickly find it here instead of manually looking it up for every single location.
Possible Improvements:
1) The sheer amount of filters and choices available (while good from the engineering perspective) could be a little overwhelming for the average user. What they could have done is make 4/5 prominently used filters available by default with the option to add any if the user wanted to do so.
2) The particle animation (which is enabled by default) seems a bit gimmicky. It's also distracting and the map would just look cleaner without the animation present. It does not add anything of substance to the information.
3) The colour scheme in the wind overlay could be better. Keeping land and the oceans both blue was a bad choice. The wind overlay with the particle animation turned on is pictured below.
