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scale – air mass – T 2 m – clouds – max rain – speed – GPU –

Choose a place: click the world map, then refine on the region map (mouse wheel – zoom, drag – pan, double-click – whole map)

Terrain: AWS Terrain Tiles (SRTM, GMTED, ETOPO1). Climate: built-in station climatology (GHCN_CAMS, GPCC) and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis, data from NOAA PSL; refined near the ground in the background with ERA5 normals (Open-Meteo).

Weather3D – help

3D atmosphere simulation on the graphics card. The tiles on the left open the menu tabs; a second click (or Esc) hides them. The centre shows the map or the 3D view; on the right is the analysis panel (vertical cross-section, probe, stations) – the “Analysis” button or the A key. Click the map to place the probe; hover to see the values near the ground.

Keyboard shortcuts

1–0 most used layers

space pause / resume

R restart

V map ↔ 3D view

F full-screen map

P save image (PNG)

S sounding: probe ↔ domain mean

W wind arrows

A analysis panel

M menu (last tab)

↑ ↓ height of the horizontal section

H / ? this help, Esc close

Mouse on the map: wheel – zoom (up to 16×), drag – pan the zoomed map, double-click – whole map. The same on the synoptic map and on the maps in the place-selection window.

Map scale

≤ 40 km – microscale (thermals, single cumulus clouds, microclimate); ≤ 400 km – mesoscale (storms, breezes, foehn, valleys); larger – synoptic scale (fronts, lows, highs). Size and detail: Settings → Grid.

Where to find things

Weather – mode, current air mass, synoptic map and 7-day forecast. Atmosphere – sounding from the probe point or the domain mean, with a full-screen view. Terrain – relief, brush (height, water, surface types), surface, hydrology. Layers – all map layers in expandable groups. Climate analysis – maps and a table of months, seasons and years. Settings – place, date, grid, map overlays, saving and loading. Stations (analysis panel) – any number of measuring points with a table, meteogram and CSV export.

The synoptic model

Primitive equations on the GPU: a channel around the whole latitude circle, 75 km grid, 12 levels up to 16 km. Lows, highs and fronts form by themselves from baroclinic instability – heat and moisture exchange with land and ocean, condensation with precipitation, and convection. The domain lies inside it: air from this model enters through the boundaries, together with clouds and precipitation.

Data and licences

Terrain: Terrain Tiles on AWS (SRTM, GMTED, ETOPO1, EU-DEM and others). Land cover: © ESA WorldCover project 2021 / Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021) processed by ESA WorldCover consortium (CC BY 4.0), read from Microsoft Planetary Computer. Places: GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Climate: weather data by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0; ERA5, Copernicus Climate Change Service); NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis, GHCN_CAMS, GPCC and GPCP data provided by the NOAA PSL, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their website at https://psl.noaa.gov. Weather3D is free software under the MIT licence: source code, all sources and licences.

Weather3D

Choose the map size, the start month and the area – then start.

Wheel – zoom · drag the map – pan · click – move the area here · drag the white frame or its corners – move / resize

Terrain: Terrain Tiles on AWS · Land cover: © ESA WorldCover project 2021 / Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021) processed by ESA WorldCover consortium · All sources and licences

Map size

Width (W–E) [km] Height (S–N) [km]

Detail (cells on the longer side; more = slower)

Grid spacing

Start month

Area centre

Mode

–

Anomaly

7-day forecast – domain centre

Sounding

Click the map to move the probe. Layout after the thundeR soundings (Czernecki, Taszarek, Szuster); computed by Weather3D.

Terrain

Relief (a change restarts)

Highest point Sea level (terrain below = water)

Brush

Paint on the map (left button: raise / add, right button: lower / remove) Paint with Brush radius

Surface (a change restarts)

Mean soil moisture

Water and hydrology

Hydrology: surface runoff and rivers Water temperature at start

Layers

Most used

Click a star to add or remove a layer at once; layers you use a lot also join the list by themselves. Keys 1–0 switch the first ten from anywhere.

Climate analysis

Period

Map

Visible domain

Period	T	Tx	Tn	P	S	TXx	TNn	Rx1d

Domain means: T, mean daily max Tx and min Tn [°C], precipitation P and snow S (water) [mm]. Extremes anywhere in the domain: absolute TXx and TNn [°C], highest daily precipitation Rx1d [mm]. * – period in progress. Click a row – map of that period. “Total” – the whole run. A restart clears the saved months.

Map

height

N
▲

Vertical cross-section

y top

x = 0 km

The section line is marked on the map.

Vertical profile

probe at a point (click the map) · dots: parcel from the ground

Probe meteogram 3 days · T, Td, clouds, precipitation, pressure, wind

Weather stations at chosen map points: live readings, measurement history, meteogram and spreadsheet export (CSV). The station list is remembered in the browser and in saved states.

Meteogram

Spreadsheet export

The further back, the coarser: every 10 min – the last 3 days, hourly means – 120 days, daily summaries (Tmin, Tmax, precipitation, snow, wind, pressure, cloud cover, sunshine, snow depth, fog) – the whole run, for long-term studies. History counts from the start (a restart clears it).