Originally Posted by
noglider
@
Jim from Boston, where do you get wind speed and direction? I haven't found an accurate web site. Maybe it's hard to do here, as the wind speed and direction varies from one spot to another because of how the terrain shapes the wind. There are some spots that normally have wind in reverse direction at almost all times, so I'm observing eddies.
I'm not Jim but in Kansas we have to be very aware of the wind and we usually decide where to ride based on having a tailwind on the way home.
I use several weather apps, all with various strengths:
Wunderground: best current conditions, especially for wind. Current conditions come from user-generated personal weather stations and you can get a pretty good idea of literally which way the wind is blowing, especially with the map view.
WeatherBug: I tend to like the user interface the best with this one, and I find the hourly forecast is generally the most accurate for localized conditions. I also like the radar and storm tracking map interface the best, plus the lightning tracker is pretty convenient during the spring and summer thunderstorms. (I don't mind riding in bad weather but lightning is nothing to mess around with.)
1weather: frankly it's my least-used app but they do have a 12-week extended forecast that I keep it around for, plus I paid for the app way back in the day when it first started so I figure I might as well keep it. The 12-week forecast is laughably vague and I probably don't actually get any use out of it but I check it anyway when I'm planning future races based on some sort of misguided optimism.
Storm Radar: this used to be a good app and then it got bought by the weather channel and now it kind of sucks, but it is one of the few apps that has a "future radar" option so I check that sometimes.
Windy: As the name implies, one of the best for wind conditions. But also has a TON of data options and overlays and if you like nerding out on minutia this is a pretty good app. Also you can get forecast data from 4 different weather models so you can pick the one you think is most accurate, or look at all 4 and try to figure out which one will be right. One of my favorites right now.
Most of these also have website versions. The Windy.com website is pretty good.