Low & Slow Wx

Wind by altitude above your field

Settings

Wind direction icon Compass rose Circle with triangle marking the FROM bearing · aviation standard Arrow Points downwind (direction of travel) Wind barb Speed encoded in feathers · feathers upwind, tip downwind

Map view layout Concentric rings Altitude is distance from the pin · arrows never overlap Hodograph fan Every arrow from the pin · lengths directly comparable

On the map, colour means altitude and arrow length means speed — the reverse of the grid, where colour means speed. There's no standard for colouring wind by height, so the ramp is ours: cream at the surface, climbing through blue to cyan at your ceiling.

Wind speed units Knots — kt Aviation standard Miles per hour — mph 1 kt ≈ 1.15 mph Meters per second — m/s 1 kt ≈ 0.51 m/s

Surface gusts Show gusts Adds a peak-gust line to the Surface row

Gusts are a 10 m (≈33 ft) quantity — the model publishes no gust at 80 m, 180 m, or any pressure level, so there is no "gust at 1,500 ft" to show. It sits in the Surface row, on the same sample that row already reports, written G14. With the sustained wind on the line directly above it, the gust factor reads off the pair: 3 kt gusting 14 looks calm and is not.

Temperature Show temperature Adds the forecast temperature at each altitude Fahrenheit — °F Celsius — °C

Temperature comes from the same model run as the wind — 2 m at the surface, then pressure-level temperatures interpolated onto the altitude ladder. Cells above the model's top show wind only.

Precipitation Show precipitation Adds a surface row with chance and accumulation per hour Inches — in Millimeters — mm Metric standard for precipitation

Precipitation is a surface quantity — one value per forecast hour, not per altitude. The big number is the chance of precipitation; the small one is the hour's expected accumulation.

Wind speed thresholds

Set where the speed bar turns amber and red.

Green Amber Red

Advanced Sample surrounding area Box view can check 9 points instead of 1 · ~213 KB

The box view normally reads one column of air above your launch point, then plans a flight that leaves it. This lets you check whether the wind a mile or two out actually matches — and whether a leg would put you into rising terrain. It fetches a ring of points in a single request, so it is one round trip, but roughly nine times the data. For planning on a good connection; it is never fetched automatically, and the box view works without it.

Degree reference Use magnetic north True north

Open-Meteo reports true-north directions. Enabling this subtracts local declination (fetched from the BGS WMM when you save a field) so degrees match your compass and sectional.

Weather History