Windy Premium - 24.3% price hike from 4th July 2025

wonkywinch

wonkywinch

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Just had a message from Google Apps that Windy Premium going up from £18.49 to £22.99 on 4th July. A 24.3% hike. Some apps you can cancel, get a pro rata refund and then renew the day before the price rise, something I did with my Ring doorbell sub.

Sadly my pension only went up 1.7% so will need to look out for cost cutting measures ;-)
 
What does the premium version give you that the free version does not?
Then decide if the extra cost is worth it especially with the price increase.
 
wonkywinch said:
Just had a message from Google Apps that Windy Premium going up from £18.49 to £22.99 on 4th July. A 24.3% hike. Some apps you can cancel, get a pro rata refund and then renew the day before the price rise, something I did with my Ring doorbell sub.

Sadly my pension only went up 1.7% so will need to look out for cost cutting measures ;-)
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Which Windy app are you referring to?
 
Must admit being a skinflint I use the free version of Windy app. I’ve never found it to be anything other than impressive.
 
Some things you get with premium:

More weather models can be selected and compared.

You can build a route and save with an estimated speed. Then when you enter a start time you can see the weather along the route at the time you will be at each point. This is useful particularly for seeing changes in wind direction.
 
Plum said:
There are two apps called Windy. Windy.app (blue icon) and Windy.com (red icon)
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Didn't know there were two with same name. I've clearly been confused by this because my app is the red one but in my post, the comparison table I screen shot was the blue one!

Anyhow, it's the red one.
 
ithet said:
Some things you get with premium:

More weather models can be selected and compared.

You can build a route and save with an estimated speed. Then when you enter a start time you can see the weather along the route at the time you will be at each point. This is useful particularly for seeing changes in wind direction.
Click to expand...
And if you set the wind barbs to "from bottom to top" it gives you true wind angle, arrows point to where the true wind will be if the boat was pointing towards the top of the screen. And waves. Really useful for passage planning & wondering when best to leave. Just checked, mines been €18.99 for past five years so won't be bothered by a bit more. So you lot don't have any adds to look at in the free version 😂

1746652124297.png
 
Only just noticed this thread. It seems to me that you are getting more data with the premium but not really more information. Remember , there are really only a few models and all use the same data and the same mathematics. ECMWF is a little better than the pack. GFS is a little worse. Having said that, in practice I mainly use the GFS. Comparison between a few forecasts is not very meaningful. In effect you are looking at a small sample from a large ensemble. If there are major differences between models, trust none. Look for forecast outputs from one model that are similar from one day to the next. Sometimes the weather situation seems to be more on a knife edge that at other times.

Don’t believe any claims of any one forecast being more accurate than another. Don’t pay too much attention to detailed forecasts. Always remember how variable the weather is - we see marked variations over short distances and times. The weather does not know itself to one Beaufort force. Remember that all models have a built in smoothing.

Windy.app is a US based app that seems only to give the GFS. I do not know why they are allowed to use the WMO logo.
 
franksingleton said:
Only just noticed this thread. It seems to me that you are getting more data with the premium but not really more information. Remember , there are really only a few models and all use the same data and the same mathematics. ECMWF is a little better than the pack. GFS is a little worse. Having said that, in practice I mainly use the GFS. Comparison between a few forecasts is not very meaningful. In effect you are looking at a small sample from a large ensemble. If there are major differences between models, trust none. Look for forecast outputs from one model that are similar from one day to the next. Sometimes the weather situation seems to be more on a knife edge that at other times.

Don’t believe any claims of any one forecast being more accurate than another. Don’t pay too much attention to detailed forecasts. Always remember how variable the weather is - we see marked variations over short distances and times. The weather does not know itself to one Beaufort force. Remember that all models have a built in smoothing.

Windy.app is a US based app that seems only to give the GFS. I do not know why they are allowed to use the WMO logo.
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Wise words. Thank you. I do find that the Windy.com app (the one with the red icon), the subject of this thread, has a good display showing the forecast comparison of their 8 models.

I have not used the Windy.app app but not likely to if they only use the GFS model
 
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Plum said:
Wise words. Thank you. I do find that the Windy.com app, the subject of this thread, has a good display showing the forecast comparison of their 8 models.

I have not used the Windy.app app but not likely to if they only use the GFS model
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In the app, you can choose the wind model by tapping the red "hamburger" and scrolling down.

Screenshot_20250517_085636_Windy.jpg
 
just noticed you need premium to see the 7 day compare actual with models for reporting stations >

9IXFcqh.png
 
So lets be clear, this thread is about windy.com with a red logo (which has an app). But it has been useful to discover that there is a windy.app with a blue logo (which has a website).
 
ithet said:
So lets be clear, this thread is about windy.com with a red logo (which has an app). But it has been useful to discover that there is a windy.app with a blue logo (which has a website).
Click to expand...
I started it related to Windy.com who have a basic free app and upgraded "Premium" version. Compared to Windy.app who I never heard of til this thread, they have Basic, Pro and Web versions.
 
Which app you use or which website is really a matter of personal likes and dislikes. I have just been in correspondence with a friend who swears by the qtVlm app. Not sure where he gets the forecasts from, maybe via Saildocs. The app has three slots, so he downloads GFS, ECMWF, ICON and can switch between the three, all of which are saved. For comparison purposes, I like Ventusky. Depending on the area and duration of forecast, I can see up to around 8 models. Choose an area and time, then switch between models. All free but the data are not saved. On my laptop, I use XyGrib with a choice of several models, global, regional and national. Like with Saildocs each forecast is downloaded individually while Windy.com and Ventusky make all their models directly available but the data are not saved. Each app has its merits.
Looking at Windy.app I see that they now provide GFS, ECMWF and ICON. Don’t be conned by Pro. Nor by claims to provide higher res data. Models are smoothed to abou 5 grid lengths. Even if you get, say ECMWF at a 10 km res, the effective res is about 50 km. There is no loss of information if you only get the output on a 25km grid.

Similarly, do not take seriously claims about high res limited area models. National weather services populate these with high res satellite and radar data. As far as I know, most private/commercial providers, usually using the WRF, do not have access to or the ability to analyse on a fine scale. They can only interpolate to finer grids from a global model. In any case, the smoothing is still to 5 grid lengths and small weather details have short lifetimes that limit predictability.

Sorry to go on a bit but there is a fair amount of misunderstanding about models.
 
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