This past summer the international weather predicting community launched a new program called ECMWF, which replaced GFS, which was 30 year old technology.
Results are very good as weather forcasting, from nation wide to local weather.
As for paragliding,i can focus on a small area with astonishing results.
I can see patterns of varying wind in certain valleys, while other valleys are perfect to fly.
Same with showers and rain..
quite impressive !
ECMWF has been around since 1975, but this year they made serious improvements to the resolution of their forecasting model.
More here: arstechnica.com/[...]
Thanks Mike! This is a great website and free to use.
@Kirkpatrick: interesting article. Don't expect the US to do anything like this. US govmt can't even do websites.
Android app is named: windyty
This improved accuracy is perfect for paragliding. Discovering valleys which are shadowed from winds is tenfold time savings.
We pilots had a good idea of such valleys hidden in a bubble / shadow but now we actually see them.
it's also good to see where to escape crap weather. Very often it's
rain in kunming but Dali is nice ( not old town) .
Dali old town is at the best place for rain , cloud, evening cold winds.. perfect 1000 years ago for farming but not for tourism.
Travel to the west side of Can Shan it's mostly sunny and dry...
