Airffic Flight

Airffic Weather

Weather & wind

Forecast data: Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com, CC BY 4.0). Check official warnings with your national weather service.

What Airffic Weather is

There are plenty of weather apps, but few put wind first. If you fly a drone, work outdoors or ride a bike, the number you want before temperature or rain chance is wind speed, and gusts. Airffic Weather lists wind at 10 m above ground, wind at 80 m, and gusts for the next 12 hours, hour by hour.

Forecast data comes from Open-Meteo, a free forecast API that combines national weather-service models and is published under CC BY 4.0; place-name lookup uses the same source. There is no key and no account, so it works the moment you open it. Your location is remembered on your device and comes back the next time you open the page.

Any hour where wind or gusts reach 8 m/s or more is shown in red. That figure is close to the wind limit of many consumer drones, but the limit differs by aircraft, so judge by the value in your own manual. Official warnings and advisories come from your national weather service; in Japan that is the Japan Meteorological Agency. This app does not issue them.

How to use it

  1. 1Enter a placeType a town or place name and search. The name is converted to coordinates and the forecast is fetched.
  2. 2Read the 12-hour tablePer hour: conditions, temperature, rain chance, wind at 10 m, wind at 80 m, gusts. Red rows are the windy hours.
  3. 3Check the weekPer day: conditions, high and low, rain chance, maximum wind. Pick the day for the shoot or the job.

Questions

What is the difference between wind at 10 m and wind at 80 m?
10 m is roughly the wind you feel standing on the ground; 80 m is the wind aloft. Wind at drone altitude is often stronger than at ground level, so a calm surface can hide a different wind above it. Check both before you decide.
Where does the forecast come from?
Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com), a free API that combines numerical forecast models from national weather services. It is used here with attribution under CC BY 4.0.
Does it show weather warnings?
No. Warnings and advisories are primary information issued by your national weather service (in Japan, the Japan Meteorological Agency), so check them there. This app lays out forecast numbers so they are easy to read.
What wind speed is safe for flying a drone?
It depends on the aircraft. The wind rating in your manual is the standard. The red 8 m/s marker in this app is a rough guide, not a go/no-go decision.
Do I need to sign in?
No. Your location is stored in your browser only and is not sent to the server.

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