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Weatherspork

pilotkms

Well Known Member
I learned of this app this past weekend, while sitting in Austin TX contemplating my return flite home to GA. Hurricane Barry had hit LA and surely would wreak havoc with my return trip. WeatherSpork was mentioned in a VAF post and they have a 14 day trial, so why not. It?s very intuitive. I learned how it works easily and developed an escape route today, departing Tuesday at 11:30. The App displays cloud TOPS in addition to the normal cloud ceilings. I was able to fly the 5 hours (1stop in Vicksburg) confidently in VFR and the weather portrayed on the App was just what I encountered.
Previously I would use 3 or 4 websites to get my weather which was a pain. And I never felt confident in what was ahead of me. Today?s trip was totally different. Some hesitation, just because it was my first use of it. But I felt more confident because I had a better plan and it flew as expected.
1 flight, but it proved itself to me. I highly recommend it. I?m definitely a satisfied new user and will gladly be signing up for the annual subscription. Not related in any way to the owners of this App.
 
I second this.

I use weatherspork.com and weathermeister.com for all my pre-trip weather planning. Both are paid, but I feel like I get my money's worth out of both.

I know the data is all out there somewhere to be had, but the way these guys pull it all together and present it makes planning and decision making much easier.

The graphical stuff that Weatherspork does is really great, in the route profile, grid, and map views. Really handy for getting a good picture of the weather along a route, and seeing how different departure times affect weather along the route. I'm very happy with it, and will definitely renew.
 
I?ve had WeatherSpork for a while now, and really like it. It is a bit pricey, but worth it to me. I like the various YouTube videos that show you how to use the different reports available. The author also has a site with various aviation weather workshops at https://avwxworkshops.com. I?ve taken a few of them and they are all very good.
 
+1 for weatherspork app

Profile view is very useful for a look at departure times and enroute weather, as note a good combination with weathermeister for trip planning.
Figs
 
+1 for Weather Spork

I’ve subscribed for a couple of years. Great product. The graphical grid and profile views are great products. I especially like it for finding ice-free IFR options in the winter.

When I’ve had questions I’ve seen responsive customer service.

Subscription includes some good training videos. Avwxworkshops.com or weatherspork.com. SAFE CFI discount.
 

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I really like Weatherspork too!

Just today I got an e-mail from the developer. He is starting a new service called EZWxBrief. I haven't used the site yet, but you should get an e-mail with the login details if you already subscribe to AvWxWorkshops.com.

See: https://ezwxbrief.com/
 
Interesting.. Sounds like a sailing weather/wind prediction service I used to subscribe to back when I was sailing. Predict Wind would pick best routing and timing when you told it you wanted to sail from point A to point B..
 
Ezwxbrief looks like WeatherSpork but better, is it a different product?

Yes, I was the co-founder of the WS app and have transferred the support of WS to the other co-founder. I am 100% focused on developing the EZWxBrief application and am no longer associated with the development of WS moving forward.
 
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my first impression

If you are a WeatherSpork user you will be disappointed to find that imagery has been removed which I will greatly miss. So in my opinion, WeatherSpork now is less useful. That function was one reason I had renewed for another year. Secondly, my first impression of EZWxBrief was not positive. I planned our trip to Florida and found the results less than useful to me. It does not work for me.
 
Interesting.. Sounds like a sailing weather/wind prediction service I used to subscribe to back when I was sailing. Predict Wind would pick best routing and timing when you told it you wanted to sail from point A to point B..

I just helped sail a boat from the USVI to Key West. Predict wind said not to go. We went anyway, predict wind was right!
 
Ugghh. I was a happy weatherspork user and now the app doesn’t open and just displays a white screen, both on android phone and ipad.
 
Ugghh. I was a happy weatherspork user and now the app doesn’t open and just displays a white screen, both on android phone and ipad.

I've always liked spork, we'll see how the new platform works out before I send em $$ to renew.
Not sure how the Safari/Ipad platform will behave when not at home with a fast internet. Even at home it seems a little sluggish.
I still run FF so the missing imagery is not an issue I'm concerned with.
Free trial: ezwxbrief.com
 
If you are a WeatherSpork user you will be disappointed to find that imagery has been removed which I will greatly miss. So in my opinion, WeatherSpork now is less useful. That function was one reason I had renewed for another year. Secondly, my first impression of EZWxBrief was not positive. I planned our trip to Florida and found the results less than useful to me. It does not work for me.

Hey Tom,

Thanks for taking a look at EZWxBrief...I'd be curious as to why your first impression was not positive? If you could send some of your thoughts to me at my [email protected] email, that would be great...I'm anxious to collect all of this feedback and put it to good use. Also, would love to set up a short Zoom session with you so I can gain a more personal understanding of those concerns. I have found this to be valuable with others. I'll be at SnF all next week, but certainly we can connect when I get back.
 
Scott,
I was an avid WS user but the new platform seems to fill the square. Still playing around with it at this point but so far so good. One thing I’d like to see is a way to loop the radar image on the map page. Yes the manual slider is there but I like to see the presentation in motion without moving the slider back and forth.
 
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I love it

I spent an hour or so yesterday watching the short how-to videos on the website.

I'll admit, I was at first a little confused on how to use the program. Part of the reason for this is that it presents some of the information in a format I have not seen before. For this reason, some aspects are not intuitive.

After watching the videos I really had an "aah- haa" moment! This is an amazing tool. This is especially true of you are planning a long cross-country flight.

I am planning a bucket list trip around the US next month. My biggest concern for this trip was weather analysis. I fly a lot of fairly long cross country flights, but all in the same 200 mile radius of where I live. I know the weather patterns and have 3 or 4 programs I use to wx brief.

However, I had no idea just how well my little system would work in all the various weather patterns I would be flying in every day for a month. I was quite concerned about this.

After spending a little time to review EzWxBrief I realized this was exactly the tool I needed. It gives you every piece of the weather puzzle in one comprehensive "all aviation" weather program. I don't need 3 or 4 different programs to get the full weather picture.

Also, flying a every day in different weather climate regions had me concerned about complacency. What if one of those days I simply forget to review all 3 or 4 of my separate briefing programs? What if I miss that one critical detail because the sky looks CAVU that morning? This program will allow consistency in my weather briefings which is very important to me.
 
Scott,
I was an avid WS user but the new platform seems to fill the square. Still playing around with it at this point but so far so good. One thing I’d like to see is a way to loop the radar image on the map page. Yes the manual slider is there but I like to see the presentation in motion without moving the slider back and forth.

Thanks a bunch for that suggestion. There's a plan in place to allow for looping of the radar image...had it in place during beta test and it was getting a bit wonky on iOS devices, so I had to remove it. Once I get that issue solved, I'll add it back.
 
Grid view

Just been trying the EZWxbrief app and it looks promising, still trying to understand whether you now need two subscriptions, one for weatherspork and one for EZWxBrief as my spork is up for renewal in May.
One view I really liked and used on spork was the grid view where you could see the predicted weather along the route depending on your departure time, made it easy to visualize a departure or arrival time slot, I do not see an equivalent on EZW.
Figs
 
Just been trying the EZWxbrief app and it looks promising, still trying to understand whether you now need two subscriptions, one for weatherspork and one for EZWxBrief as my spork is up for renewal in May.

They are (and will always be) separate subscriptions.
 
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I second the request for the grid view being added to EZWXBRIEF. I’ve spent time with the videos learning the app, but still miss the grid view from WeatherSpork. Am I missing something?

Rick Solana
 
I second the request for the grid view being added to EZWXBRIEF. I’ve spent time with the videos learning the app, but still miss the grid view from WeatherSpork. Am I missing something?

Hi Rick,

Much of the value you see in the grid view has been incorporated into the EZDeparture Advisor that evaluates the weather along your route based on your personal wx minimums. The WS grid view isn't scientifically valid. This is the primary reason it wasn't incorporated into the EZWxBrief progressive web app. There are better ways to do this and that's where I headed.
 
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EZWxbrief

I've tried the EZWxBrief and didn't like all the options and choices. Nothing is intuitive as it was in Weatherspork. I used the WS Profile view quite a lot and find the EZWxBrief much more difficult to use. I realize there are training videos available but I don't feel much like watching yet another training presentation on something that I used (WS) all the time.

If WS drops the features I liked, I will not be switching over or renewing any of the products, WS or EZWx. I'll learn to use the features in www.1800wxbrief.com on my DASHBOARD view and spend my time learning that. Along with the Garmin Pilot app.

Just my feedback thoughts.
 
I've tried the EZWxBrief and didn't like all the options and choices. Nothing is intuitive as it was in Weatherspork. I used the WS Profile view quite a lot and find the EZWxBrief much more difficult to use. I realize there are training videos available but I don't feel much like watching yet another training presentation on something that I used (WS) all the time.

If WS drops the features I liked, I will not be switching over or renewing any of the products, WS or EZWxBrief. I'll learn to use the features in www.1800wxbrief.com on my DASHBOARD view and spend my time learning that.

Just my feedback thoughts.

Nice to hear your feedback Steve. Thanks. Yes, I realize that EZWxBrief is not going to be for everyone. If a user doesn't use personal weather minimums or wants to quantify their personal risk along the route, then it's not something they really need. So I can certainly understand why someone wouldn't want to commit the time to read the 140+ page Pilots Guide and view the many EZWxBrief videos (many of which also teach viewers more about aviation weather, not just about the EZWxBrief progressive web app).

I've used personal weather mins since I started flying 25 years ago and it wasn't easy to apply them to your proposed route of flight since all of the evaluation had to be done manually with very low res data along the route (e.g. METARs/TAFs). Most apps just throw data at you and don't do that well integrating this into a decision-making tool. Along those lines, I know 1800wxbrief.com uses TAFs along the route for their "departure" guidance which is really a dangerous thing to do given that TAFs are only valid 5SM from the center of the airport's runway complex.

That's not the case now with EZWxBrief. Within just 30 seconds with EZWxBrief you can quickly evaluate and quantify your personal risk and choose the best time to depart that meets those mins along your route using high resolution forecasts. You won't find that with any other app out there. Moreover, apps like WS use a very rudimentary relative humidity scheme from the GFS model to depict clouds...it's a horrible and unscientific way to determine where clouds may or may not exist along the route especially when there's moist convection (the GFS is not a convection-allowing model). EZWxBrief, on the other hand, blends multiple forecast models to depict clouds, wind, icing and turbulence along the route and is scientifically valid.
 
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I've tried the EZWxBrief and didn't like all the options and choices. Nothing is intuitive as it was in Weatherspork. I used the WS Profile view quite a lot and find the EZWxBrief much more difficult to use. I realize there are training videos available but I don't feel much like watching yet another training presentation on something that I used (WS) all the time.

If WS drops the features I liked, I will not be switching over or renewing any of the products, WS or EZWx. I'll learn to use the features in www.1800wxbrief.com on my DASHBOARD view and spend my time learning that. Along with the Garmin Pilot app.

Just my feedback thoughts.

Hi Steve, sorry to resurrect an old thread but wanted to see if you're still liking WeatherSpork? We did have to remove some features (e.g., training videos) when we parted ways but hopefully most of the stuff you like is still there.

If you have any feedback on features you'd like to see added please do share them here or via the support email [email protected] .

Thanks!
David B.
 
Dont know about Weatherspork, but I have found what I need for VFR cloud tops , overcast and forecast out to 11 days on Windy.com. The accuracy is remarkable. . I also got the premimum sub just to support the site but seems to have most everything on the freebe.
Windy is a model forecast from one of several you can choose. There a also overlays for airports, radar wx and sat which are real time . With that I have not explored other wx data sites recently, but will take a look at weatherspork. Thanks
 
Dont know about Weatherspork, but I have found what I need for VFR cloud tops , overcast and forecast out to 11 days on Windy.com. The accuracy is remarkable. . I also got the premimum sub just to support the site but seems to have most everything on the freebe.
Windy is a model forecast from one of several you can choose. There a also overlays for airports, radar wx and sat which are real time . With that I have not explored other wx data sites recently, but will take a look at weatherspork. Thanks

Thanks Dennis look forward to hearing your feedback!
 
weatherspork

Hi David, yes I still lke the product as I find it easy to use without too much clicking.

There are a large number of weather apps out there now and they all have more information than a pilot can really use/digest in planing. Now that we have live weather available so readily in flight via ads-b... preflight planning detail is not as intense as it once was. Pilots monitor the live weather as they fly, so the data provided by the online apps prior to takeoff, does not require all the pages and pages of charts and drawings these apps supply.

So I find a simple to use app like weatherspork provides all the planning data I need. Weatherspork is quick and easy to remember how and where to find what I want to see.

Steve
 
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