What is WindGURU?

WindGURU is a service specialized for forecasting weather, mostly for windsurfers and kitesurfers (but not only...). Forecasts are based on data produced by weather forecast models. Windguru is able to provide forecast for any place on planet Earth. The main reason to create this site was the idea to get the forecasts quickly and easily without wild clicking the mouse while searching for meteomaps throughout the internet.

Important: The forecasts you can see on this website are definitelly not official forecasts, Windguru was developed in order to help people in forecasting. What you see is only raw model data in human readable format, it's up to you how to interpret it. Please note that models are only models..., predicting weather is extremely difficult task and these models are very complicated, if the forecasts are not perfect, it's normal.

The forecasts are displayed in tables which show how the weather will develop on a certain location in the next few days. Sure that the wind speed and direction are the most important, but it also shows temperature, precipitation, cloud cover and waves (for ocean spots). Of course this is not the only thing you can see on this website, there are also wind archives, tide predictions, some forecast maps, "Top forecast" search, a simple forum for users... and I hope other new features will appear later. But, all in all, the basis of windguru will always be the forecast tables:

Forecast tables

Every forecast table shows a model initialization time (top left corner) which is in UTC (GMT), all the other times are in local time. The last row of the forecast shows a MapQuest link (which is a nice map server - if you click you will see where the spot is located), next are location coordinates and timezone - if the timezone is set correctly it should automatically adjust daylight savings time if it is active. Next to the little sun icon are the times of sunrise and sunset in local time (these are really sunrise and sunset, NOT dawn and twilight). A little legend for the forecasts:

Wind speed: wind speed in 10 meters above surface

Modified windspeed: The idea of "modified wind" is to estimate how good the wind will be at locations which are more senstitive to wind directions but the model does not realize it. Because of the landscape around your spot the wind may be better when it blows from one direction but worse when it blows from the other. You can find more info about wind modifications in a special help section

Wind direction: most will understand this :) but after all I still sometimes get questions about it, so to be clear to everyone: this is NORTH wind, it is the wind which blows FROM north. Other example: south-west wind:

Temperature: temperature in 2 meters above ground

Cloud cover: total cloud cover in percent (low, middle, high clouds all together)

Rain: rain in milimeters. Note that for different models the values express a little different values: in GFS model it is rain for the last 3 hours, but in WRF for last 1 hour (because we have values in 1 hour step for WRF), so, do not compare only the numbers. But note, that for better comparison the background color indicating intensity will be the same for both (in WRF the colour is the same as if we would convert rain in last 1 hour into rain in last 3 hours)

Windguru rating: How good the windsurfing conditions will be? I suppose all you are interested in is the windspeed :) only low temperature can be a limit sometimes... exact numbers of stars depend on your user settings but default should mean something like this:

	= It should be OK, but big sails only (7.x meter sails)
	= Very good wind. Don't leave your 5.x meter sails at home!
	= Superb! It's a crime to ignore such a day!
	Blue stars instead of yellow appear when cold weather is expected (default is 10 deg C or lower temperature, but you can adjust this in user settings)

Yes, others than windsurfers have different preferences, for example for paraglider 30 knots is not the best day... I hope to prepare some other ratings for other users too.

For most ocean locations also wave forecast is available. This is based on NWW3 model (NOAA wave watch III)

Wave: Significant wave height in meters. It is the average height (from wave crest to trough) of the one-third highest waves at a location.

Wave period: Peak wave period in seconds. It is the period of the dominant wave system derived from the wave energy spectrum. This can either be the locally generated "wind sea" (in cases with strong local winds) or swell that is generated elsewhere.

Wave direction: Direction of the dominant waves.

Please note that the wave data are general for "around that area", on the open sea... not for your local reef inside your small bay (forecasts are based on coarse NWW3 data). You have to think about what waves come to your beach based on what waves are forecasted.

Colors used in forecasts: