Crescent Lake, Kenai Peninsula. Tony and Sarah, top. Me! bottom.

Digging Deeper with Windy

I'm kind of freaking out about last weekend's ice. It was so good that I went to the same lake (Crescent) three days in a row.

But a low-pressure system rolled through today, with forecast snow. I want to know: What is actually happening? My application is ice, but I bet you ask this same question for other activities.

I am a huge fan of windy.com for all of my weather needs. If you are new to windy, you might want to start with this introductory webcast, though, it is a little outdated. The resources in this email are not discussed in that webcast.

The question I'm trying to answer is: Where is it snowing, and how much snow is accumulating? Windy provides a few ways to address this question: models, radar, and webcams.

Models

There are a number of relevant model layers available in the list on the right side of the screen: Cloud cover, rain (shown below), snow accumulation, etc.

Unfortunately, these are models, and therefore not the best way to answer my "what is really happening now" question.

Radar

In addition to models, windy offers 'weather now' layers including Weather radar, Satellite (cloud cover), and Radar+, which combines radar and satellite. Note that you can select and arrange this list of layers by clicking on the red Menu hamburger icon at the top of the list.

The image below is Radar+. You can see the extent of cloud cover over the Kenai Peninsula and a pocket of blue radar reflectivity east of Anchorage at the time of this email (circled in yellow).

Let's take a closer look at radar. Radar provides the real pay-off regarding precipitation because the radar pulse reflects off of precipitation particles: more reflection = more intense precip. The next image is radar only, and shows a band of precipitation along the western half of the Kenai Peninsula:

The controls at the bottom of the screen (red circle) allow you to view archived radar. I scrolled through last night's data to find this pulse of precipitation around midnight. The color scale indicates that the precipitation was light.

Webcams

Nothing beats an "out the window" report, and I can kind of get that from Windy's webcam layer.

The control at the bottom right corner allows you to select features to display on the map such as measured wind speeds, air temperatures, and webcam locations. I've circled the webcam icon. 

It gets better! Windy archives webcam images, so you can scroll through the night or farther back. The image below shows streaks of falling snow around 9 AM this morning. I can watch for accumulation by sliding the time controller.

So ... windy. Is it amazing? Yes. Should you name your next child, pet, or plant after it? Yes. Did it snow enough to ruin the skating on the peninsula? I don't think so!

This is the kind of work that we do in Start & End at Home, my risk management and trip planning course in February. If you see the utility in this approach but are intimidated by the tools, Start & End at Home will provide the support you need. If you are more interested in the world of ice, specifically, Wild Ice is the place to start.

-Luc

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