The new PowderGuide map is live!

Principles and foundations

The PG-Map is three-dimensional - because mountains have height and the earth is a sphere

Probably the most characteristic feature of a mountain is its vertical extension, its height. This is why our PG-Map can now be displayed in three dimensions. With intuitive operation and very good loading time performance, the mountain worlds can be explored with all the PG weather maps in their natural vertical dimension.

We now display our weather forecasts on a three-dimensional earth, no longer as before in an angular-conserving but area-distorting Mercator projection. This means that our representation does not require a projection, because it is always the view from a height onto the spherical earth. Thus the areas of countries closer to the poles, e.g. Norway and Greenland, are no longer overestimated.

In addition, we are finally providing ICON forecasts for the whole world at a resolution of at least one degree. The existing higher-resolution areas, such as the Alps, remain as they are anyway. This can be seen impressively in Globe mode - just zoom out of the map completely!

Empowered users deserve transparent information

We trust in the judgment of our users, because the critical and responsible evaluation of all available information is the first priority in alpine terrain anyway. That's why we provide various presentations of precipitation. We show total precipitation and rainfall, but of course we focus on snowfall.

We now offer snow depth change, new snow amount and recently also new snow depth. We would like to emphasize here the difference between new snow amount, which always assumes a new snow density of 100 kgm^-3, and new snow depth, which is an empirical estimate of new snow density. The latter depends on wind speed near the ground and air temperature. There are also available the well-known ensemble statistics and influence masks. This is just a brief summary, detailed explanations will follow!

Just as we are convinced of the maturity of our users, we feel obliged to present our information transparently. We see this requirement fulfilled in the clear and informative model and variable descriptions. If you come across too little information at any point, please let us know!

Three-hourly resolution thanks to parallelization

For a long time, we wanted to show more than just 24-hourly forecasts. Now, mainly thanks to a massive parallelization of the code, we have managed to calculate and display (almost) all forecast variables in three-hourly resolution. However, it was also important for us to retain the 24-hour forecasts and foremost to not complicate the operation of the system with this development.

The innovative slider and the indication of the current time (red line) is addressing this point! Soon enough there will also be a play button. It is already realized and particularly relevant for our international readership: The time axis can be adapted to the current location by selecting the respective time zone!

Further advantages of the parallelization are the significantly shorter computing times, which means that the weather and forecasts are now finally available before you get up and you can use the current forecasts for your daily plans even if you start very early in the morning. In addition, this may also allow several updates per day, which we will soon analyze in our test environments.

The PowderGram - all information at a glance

It was important to me personally to finally show our users weather information in the form of a meteogram. After two years of development, we now present the PowderGram. Initial internal feedback is divided between fantastic (oracle) and far too complicated (everyone else).

Nevertheless, I am sure that everyone else will be convinced by the PowderGram, at the latest with a detailed description. I will describe the idea of the PowderGram here only briefly; further, necessary explanations will be provided in the coming weeks.

A PowderGram describes the temporal development of the weather not only for a location like the meteogram, but also for a mountain and a nearby valley town. In addition, regional weather characteristics (cloud cover, winds, temperatures, etc.) are also given as an average value for the circumference area around the mountain with the valley town as the boundary point.

This compensates for erratic values of individual model grid points and gives the Powdergram a meaningful assessment of regional conditions. The efforts to make the PowderGram self-explanatory are evident and we are convinced that with a detailed introduction (coming soon!) the PowderGram will become an intuitive and innovative information tool for every user!

There are currently already 75 PowderGrams calculated and displayed in the PowderGuide-Map. The valley-mountain areas are mainly in the Alps, but the Pyrenees and the Balkans are also already represented. The PowderGrams can currently be calculated throughout Europe. We therefore expressly invite all users to submit mountain and valley locations for their personal PowderGram. Please send the valley and mountain names with a maximum distance of approx. 15 km by e-mail to Sebastian and we will add your PowderGram to the PG-Map as quickly as possible!

The future of PG weather forecasts

Of course, we have many more plans and are convinced that the PowderGuide map will be the best basis for further weather forecast variables, functions and content. Further revisions and refinements to functionality and presentation are already underway. New variables such as the snow water equivalent anomaly and arbitrary precipitation intervals are also being prepared for the next release! But these are just a few of the many ideas that we are still planning and will hopefully be able to implement in the coming months and years.

You are welcome to send us your feedback or further development ideas for the new PowderGuide map and we will certainly listen to, discuss and analyse the extent to which this can be implemented. You can leave your feedback as a comment below this article or on the PowderGuide weather page. Thank you so much for your feedback!

Contributors - You can't do it alone

A huge “thank you” goes to the people at our IT agency croox - cross over xperts for design and digital, who have invested at least as much passion, energy and creativity in this project as we have. The collaboration with them is based on such trust and friendship that this must be mentioned.

In the 25 years of PowderGuide's existence, we have never encountered such a high standard of quality, self-initiative, innovative ideas and motivation for new things among the many IT agencies. A very close partnership has developed over the last three years and we still have a lot planned - so you can be excited!

When looking for an IT agency, we can only warmly recommend clicking above and not wasting time with other inquiries!

The following contributors were involved and are listed in alphabetical order:

• Andi Haas (croox)

• Chris Nolte (croox)

• Daniel Kuttner (croox)

• Daniel Wentsch (croox)

• Joshua Allgeier (croox)

• Michael Steger (PowderGuide)

• Sebastian Müller (PowderGuide)

• Shankara Stefan Girgsdies (croox)

• Totti Lingott (PowderGuide)

The translators were

• Nicolas Bonaventi (Italian)

• Tobias Leistenscheider (French)

• Ondrej Mindl (Czech)

• Pablo Díez Arrizabalaga (Spanish)