Windy.com purchased a majority stake in metro meteoblue who as we all know provides weather for MSFS. Windy is a great app so I see it as a win long term. Press release below:

Basel, Switzerland 12.6.2024 – Windyty, S.E., the operator of the renowned global weather service Windy.com, is thrilled to announce the acquisition of a majority stake in meteoblue, A.G., a Basel based company well known for its highest accuracy weather forecasting services. This strategic move further strengthens Windyty, S.E.’s position as a leader in the global weather forecasting industry.

CEO of meteoblue and co-founder, Dr. Karl Gutbrod, stated: "This partnership is a step change milestone in our journey to become the one premium weather data source worldwide. Joining forces with Windyty, S.E. will expand our global reach, enhance our leading capabilities and unleash new innovation potential. We are enthusiastic with the solution perspectives we can offer by combining the best data with the best visualization."

meteoblue founder Mathias Müller, added: "From our humble beginnings at the University of Basel to leading technological advancements in weather forecasting, meteoblue has always been driven by innovation. We were already computing 2 km weather forecasts in 2008, something that is still considered an innovation today. Our first machine learning combined dozens of different weather models already in 2018, long before AI became a buzzword. With Windyty, S.E., we are set to redefine what is possible in the realm of meteorological services and bring the best weather data not just to business customers but to hundreds of millions of users."

Windyty recognizes the value and big potential of meteoblue and is committed to further developing the corporate business as well as the well known meteoblue.com consumer website for weather enthusiasts. As Ivo Lukacovic, founder of Windy.com says: "At Windy, we hold the utmost respect and admiration for the technologies and research conducted by meteoblue. We eagerly anticipate harnessing the full potential of our collaboration."

Both companies have agreed not to disclose any further details about the deal. The acquisition is not only a testimony to the remarkable achievements of both companies but also a promising new chapter in the pursuit of excellence in weather modeling and visualisation. With shared goals and complementary technologies, Windyty, S.E. and meteoblue, A.G. are poised to deliver enhanced value to their users and stakeholders worldwide.

About Windyty, S.E.:

Founded in 2014 in Prague, Windyty, S.E. has become one of the most popular global weather platforms, providing real-time weather data, advanced forecasting, and interactive weather mapping to millions of users worldwide. Its user-friendly interface and precise weather predictions have made Windy.com indispensable for meteorologists, pilots, and outdoor enthusiasts.

About meteoblue, A.G.:

Established in 2006 by Mathias Müller and colleagues as a spin-off from the University of Basel, meteoblue has grown into a global service provider with customers in more than 60 countries. meteoblue has specialized in providing high-precision weather and climate services. Based on its unique AI-powered technology, big data is made small by condensing all available weather data into a simple forecast with top accuracy. The technology offers deep insights into weather patterns and has been integral to sectors ranging from agriculture to renewable energy, building management, and even gaming.

 

 

Oohh that is good news, as someone who loves his weather apps/websites I've been a long time admirer of Windy.com. 

I wonder if this will help future MSFS Live Weather interactions, give a much needed boost to an area that's clearly in need of improvement, I hope so.

Before the SU7 untested METAR integration shambles I used to use windy.com and MSFS quite happily side by side to check for storms, wind & cloud cover, that soon became pointless with SU7 as the blending and transitions were simply terrible at first. I might have to take another look at this with AS to see how they match up.

While this is good news for MSFS in that Meteoblue is even more beefed up in the global weather data and forecasting area, this is not going to help with the METAR blending as that's solely on Asobo to improve. They certainly have since the SU7 debacle, but hopefully even more so in MSFS 2024 if not a rewrite of the blending algorithms/techniques.

I wouldn't mind if they provided a pure global/forecasting live weather model like pre-SU7 (i.e. based purely on Meteoblue data), in addition to METAR blended (i.e. user choosable in sim).. thought not sure how technically feasible that is.
 

12 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

I wouldn't mind if they provided a pure global/forecasting live weather model like pre-SU7 (i.e. based purely on Meteoblue data), in addition to METAR blended (i.e. user choosable in sim).. thought not sure how technically feasible that is.

We asked, Jorg literally laughed off the idea in a Q&A shortly after SU7s release when it was clear METAR integration affected Live Weather in a bad way at that time, I don't think he really understood our frustrations fully.

There has been a partnership between the two companies for quite some time. MB provides some of the underlying wind data that Windy uses in their animated wind maps. MB uses Windy’s animated wind map technology in their own app.

I think this could be good news for MSFS. Both the owner of Windyty and his brother are avid pilots. One of their side activities was the purchase and operation of a private airfield near Prague, Točná (LKTC), including the acquisition and preservation of historic aircraft (https://www.tocna.cz/?lang=en)

Can’t see how this is remotely related to msfs.
It’s not that it’s gaining a better or worse provider and the issues are not in the raw data anyway.

Imagine a portion of a terrain being depicted by observation (sparsely strewn low height houses within dense forest region and two winding asphalt roads extending in a W-E direction)

Would you prefer this depiction being rendered or having an actual image of the area?

Larry David vs The World (1:0)

Can't really understand this obsession with METAR. As if there is something soothing in a fact that you hear the rain or thunder both in sim and outside of your window that it surpasses all other awkwardness that come with it.

Edited June 14, 20241 yr by versus

41 minutes ago, ha5mvo said:

Can’t see how this is remotely related to msfs.
It’s not that it’s gaining a better or worse provider and the issues are not in the raw data anyway.

It could help with better future data advances and acquisition to process and use on the simulator, think of the long term.

9 minutes ago, MarcG said:

It could help with better future data advances and acquisition to process and use on the simulator, think of the long term.

But windy is the client here, not the data provider. Not sure that adding another client is going to change anything. Besides, the issues are not with the accuracy of the data but the way it’s being handled by the sim so in that regard, I doubt all that is going to make any difference.