Weather forecasts
SportsTrackLive builds a full forecast page for any point on Earth — designed for free-flight pilots and outdoor athletes who need more than an icon and a temperature: wind at altitude, the convective layer, cloud cover by level, and how the models disagree with each other.
Opening a forecast
There are three ways in:
- From an activity page — the orange Forecast button next to Export opens the forecast for the activity's start location.
- From the map — click anywhere on an activity map: an animated cursor marks the point, and its tooltip "Forecast at this location" opens the forecast page for those exact coordinates.
- By URL — Google-Maps-style coordinates, straight in the address bar:
https://www.sportstracklive.com/weather-forecasting/@42.69,2.49Nearby requests reuse the same forecast point (about 1 km — the grid size of the finest model), so repeated clicks around a takeoff share one page.
The page header
- If the point sits within 1 km of a known site (a locality with recorded activities), the site names the page —
Pic Arnau, Tarerach - 42.69, 2.49— followed by the ground altitude. - Nearby sites appear as chips: name, distance from your point (in metres below 5 km) and ▲ site altitude. Each chip links to the site's activity page.
- The run caption tells you which model run you are looking at ("Run AROME HD 2026-08-10 14:00" — the estimated initialisation time of the run) and the model's ground elevation.
Six forecast models
Switch model with one click — the active tabs only offer models that actually cover your point (AROME stops at the French borders; GFS and ECMWF cover the globe).
| Model | Provider | Resolution | Refresh | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AROME HD | Météo-France | 1.3 km | every 3 h | 3 days |
| AROME | Météo-France | 2.5 km | every 3 h | 3 days |
| ARPEGE | Météo-France | 11 km | every 6 h | 4 days |
| ICON | DWD | 7 km | every 3 h | 5 days |
| GFS | NOAA | 13 km | every 6 h | 5 days |
| ECMWF | ECMWF | 25 km | every 6 h | 5 days |
AROME HD — the best of both worlds
The 1.3 km AROME HD feed only publishes surface fields. SportsTrackLive automatically merges its high-resolution surface data (wind, temperature, CAPE, precipitation) with the AROME 2.5 km vertical profile — the same approach the reference soaring sites use.
Runs are archived for 14 days: the Runs selector lets you reopen an older run and compare what the model believed yesterday with what it says now. Switching model or day never loses your place — the selected day, ceiling and palette carry over.
Surface quick view
A meteogram of the coming days, hour by hour:
- Weather icons day and night — night icons show the actual moon phase.
- Temperature and feels-like, with a smooth temperature curve and the dew point curve behind the numbers.
- Rain (mm), wind and gusts on a colour ramp that saturates as it strengthens, and the wind direction arrows.
- A 1 h / 3 h step toggle (no page reload) and a Now button that jumps back to the current hour after you scrolled.
Vertical cross-section
The heart of the page — altitude rows from the ground up to a selectable ceiling (2000 / 3000 / 4000 / 5000 m, default picked from the day's thermal ceiling), hour columns:
- Wind arrows per cell, coloured by speed (hover for speed, direction, temperature and cloud cover at that level).
- The convective layer highlighted from the ground to the estimated thermal ceiling — computed by the dry-adiabatic method from the model profile. It is an estimate, not a direct model output, and is marked with a dashed ceiling line.
- Cloud cover as a grey veil in the cells, plus dedicated high / mid / low cloud bars.
- Header rows: sea-level pressure, precipitation, CAPE.
- Row scale of 100 m or 200 m, two palettes (classic soaring look, or a full colour ramp where the convective layer switches to a salmon wind ramp), and a dashed now marker.
Model comparison
One chart, all covering models: surface wind, hour by hour, one line per model for the selected day. Where the models agree you can trust the picture; where the lines split, the day is uncertain — check back after the next runs.
When the forecast point is linked to a live weather beacon, the chart also shows the beacon's readings and each model tab displays its mean absolute error (± km/h) against the beacon over the last hours — so you know which model to believe today. On the cross-section's ground row, a model value that clearly deviates from the live reading is struck through with the beacon's real value shown in violet.
Stüve diagram
For pilots who read soundings: a multi-day time × pressure section (1000 → 500 hPa):
- Temperature field in 5 °C bands (pastel), isotherms every 5 °C with the 0 °C isotherm in white — spot the freezing level at a glance.
- Standard wind barbs (knots: half barb 5, full 10, pennant 50) per pressure level.
- Night bands on the hour axis, day separators, and the same 1 h / 3 h toggle.
Good to know
- Forecast data comes from the model providers via the Open-Meteo aggregator; pages refresh automatically as new runs are published.
- All times are local to the forecast point.
- The estimated thermal ceiling and convective layer are computed values — always cross-check with actual conditions and local knowledge before flying.
- The same forecasts are built into the mobile app — tap any point of the 3D map or use the weather button for your own position.