Weather forecast is an important thing, double so in skydiving. First, because of safety. Nobody wants to jump in a gusting wind, or freezing rain, or without a clear sight of a landing area. Second, dedicating driving for a jumping weekend, to face a 1000 feet overcast all day, is no fun. Fortunately, there are a lot of forecast sources.
There are big names, like weather.com, accuweather.com etc. They will show you a lot of information: humidity, sunset/sunrise, Temperature RealFeel etc.
But what skydiver really wants to know is a combination of very few parameters: wind speed with gusts, wind direction, temperature, and clouds coverage. There is a great resource for that: www.usairnet.com. All aviation and skydiving related data at your fingertips:
Looking at this, educated skydiver can see if weekend is going to be jumpable, or just hanging out at the dropzone.
Though, some crucial information is missing. For instance, wind gusts. It is not uncommon to have a 5 knot wind all day, and 20 knot gusts. Strong wind gusts make jumping unsafe.
Although, it is good to know the cloud base, but all clouds are different. For instance, few clouds at 2000 feet is not a problem at all. Also broken clouds at 6000 feet make a beautiful sky, and are safe, as long as you can see the ground.
So, it would be very useful to know clouds types, and their exact altitudes.
Introducing new Spot Assist feature: Skydiving Forecast
Looking at this forecast it becomes clear, that there will be an overcast at 5000 feet from 11am to 5pm. It means you will not be able to see the ground, but under 5ooo feet there will be just some broken clouds. And at 5pm the wind will slightly pick up, and bring 20 knot gusts.
Finally, all information is in one place and makes a nice, relevant to skydiving snapshot of a daily weather.
Happy jumping and Blue Skies
