Cool site with wind graphics

Funny how the internet works. Through one of the links I ended up on the Dude!!! I Want That sight watching a video of the Track N Go which is just as awesome as the wind map!
 
Interesting to look at the one from the OP.
You can clearly see why the old windjammers would leave Boston and follow the coast Northeast until they could pick u p the spin going to England. A longer route than a direct course, but weeks and weeks faster.
And the passage around the tip of SOuth AMerica has two wind currents 180 degrees apart rubbing against each other with the center of the wind shear right over the passsage. A really rough part of the world for boats or planes.
 
It also shows the tropical convergence zone very clearly.

What it doesn't show is lift/sink. That would be quite interesting. When all the wind converges to a point, it's going somewhere. Since that's 1000 mb, it really has to be up.
 
If you click where it says "Earth" you'll get a menu with options for various heights aloft, and forecast data.
 
Yes, that's commonly done. It may be the best available display, but it's not very obvious what's happening. For instance, it's quite difficult at altitude to tell lift from sink, though all the models have vertical wind speed available.

The truth is that 3D flow field visualization is a difficult problem, without any really good solutions.
 
Silvaire said:
Funny how the internet works. Through one of the links I ended up on the Dude!!! I Want That sight watching a video of the Track N Go which is just as awesome as the wind map!
Click to expand...

so weird. the same thing happened to me. I just lost 30min of my life on that site
 
Winds seem to be much weaker over continents than at sea. I did not know that.
 
Yep, at 1000 mb, all that pesky terrain gets in the way.

Grab the NWS forecast DB (graphical.weather.gov) and look at wind speeds just 10 miles offshore.
 
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