Winds aloft forecast

[ArrowFlyer86]

I'm trying to find some forecasted winds aloft data to help me pick a departure day for this week. Do you have any recommendations?

Normally I just take winds aloft as they are as long as the other wx elements check out. But this trip I'll be flying southwest from Chicago to Arizona, and we're going to have a 30-50kt headwind from the S/SW for the next day or two and I'd prefer not to turn an already 11h 1-way trip into a 15h trip if I can avoid it.

I can get reasonably accurate surface wind forecast that are many days out, but so far I have only found winds aloft data going out 48h. This is using my subs on both ForeFlight and EzWxBrief.

Any suggestions on where to look?

 

[Walboy]

The Windy App has what you want. Free

 

[455 Bravo Uniform]

Another thing you can do is look at the prog charts out to about 7 days to get an idea of predicted L & H and the pressure gradient along your route.

I also use the long range forecast discussions under the TAF tab of the weather in ForeFlight for a few of the cities I’ll fly over AND also west of my route to roughly figure out what will move into my path.

I’ll pick altitude 1-2 days out and then fine-tune day of.

Looking forward to hearing about the trip, since you helped me out with my planning to AZ last fall.

 

[455 Bravo Uniform]

Looks like if you can get out just after the front passes, you may have the least velocity of winds?

 

[Hang 4]

2nd vote for Windy.com. There's an altitude slider that lets you see the wind at about 3,000 ft intervals. I use it all the time, works well

 

[Plano Pilot]

Also https://eldoradoweather.com/current/models/North-America/gfs-00-listings.html

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

and…. they’re all off by >50% of the wind speed, 90% of the time

 

[Revtach]

Flightplan Go will give you the forecast winds aloft if you put in a flight plan. You can go up to a week out I believe.

 

[MooneyDriver78]

and…. they’re all off by >50% of the wind speed, 90% of the time

They shouldn’t be, except may be location is off:

Example St. Paul vs Fargo