When to Go There [weather information for best time to visit]
Jun 10, 2017, 10:06 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2015
Posts: 24
When to Go There [weather information for best time to visit]
One thing I always found myself doing when booking holidays was trawling through complex climate tables on Wikipedia, trying work out when in the year the weather would be at its best. Often there was no city near enough to where I was going and therefore no concrete data to rely on, the data was monthly so I was always trying to interpolate numbers in my head, and there is never any data on wind ... which I find an important factor for beach holidays. E.g. you won't be doing much swimming on unsheltered west coast beaches in Phuket between May-Oct ... etc.
So, this > http://www.whentogothere.com/
Is my attempt at putting together a tool to make better decisions on when to go to places.
You can type in, literally, anywhere on the globe (locations are done with Google Maps) and it will tell you typical weather down to 1 day resolution for temperature (including humidity effect based on heat index methodology), cloud, rainfall and wind.
There is also a crude "weather score" which is work in progress but takes account of all the variables and tries to distil them into an overall daily score out of 10.
Data comes from a combination of global weather models and observations averaged over 30 years+ ...
There is a LOT of work still to do (most obviously I need to add a Fahrenheit units option) and it is quite slow due to the sheer amount of data that has to be crunched and my poor javascript programming skills ...
Has been an interesting journey building this including learning a lot about meteorology and handling big datasets, hope it's useful, and keen to hear any comments/suggestions!
Update: please see latest post below for new site features added.
So, this > http://www.whentogothere.com/
Is my attempt at putting together a tool to make better decisions on when to go to places.
You can type in, literally, anywhere on the globe (locations are done with Google Maps) and it will tell you typical weather down to 1 day resolution for temperature (including humidity effect based on heat index methodology), cloud, rainfall and wind.
There is also a crude "weather score" which is work in progress but takes account of all the variables and tries to distil them into an overall daily score out of 10.
Data comes from a combination of global weather models and observations averaged over 30 years+ ...
There is a LOT of work still to do (most obviously I need to add a Fahrenheit units option) and it is quite slow due to the sheer amount of data that has to be crunched and my poor javascript programming skills ...
Has been an interesting journey building this including learning a lot about meteorology and handling big datasets, hope it's useful, and keen to hear any comments/suggestions!
Update: please see latest post below for new site features added.
Last edited by basil_fawlty; Dec 1, 2018 at 1:14 pm
Jun 10, 2017, 10:11 am
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Parts Unknown
Posts: 10,053
It's a good start and great job tinkering with all those datasets and models! I put in my city of Seoul, South Korea and the data could be adjusted a bit for the Cherry blossom season and Fall foliage (upwards towards a 9-10). Jan and Feb could shrink closer to 0 (miserably cold in Seoul).
Jun 10, 2017, 8:49 pm
#3
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: BOS
Programs: AA EXP, DL PM, Hyatt Diamond
Posts: 2,028
I quite like this. How far back does the data go for averaging, typically? What's the typical length of time it goes back? I'd also love to see a C->F conversion as a ignorant American.
LOL, read your post before hitting submit and saw that you address all of these points already. Great job!
LOL, read your post before hitting submit and saw that you address all of these points already. Great job!
Jun 11, 2017, 2:36 am
#4
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2015
Posts: 24
The core dataset is 1979-2010. On top of that are added various observational sets which enhance the accuracy around populated / famous places ... time frame on these depends on how long there has been an accurate weather station for ... in some cases 50 years+ I think.
One thing I should have emphasised is that you can type exact hotels into it.
A good example is hotels on the coast of Sri Lanka .... big differences in weather between east and west coast for instance, and even hotels which look relatively close to each other can have quite big differences. You wouldn't realise this if you were just putting "Sri Lanka climate" into google I don't think.
One thing I should have emphasised is that you can type exact hotels into it.
A good example is hotels on the coast of Sri Lanka .... big differences in weather between east and west coast for instance, and even hotels which look relatively close to each other can have quite big differences. You wouldn't realise this if you were just putting "Sri Lanka climate" into google I don't think.
Jun 11, 2017, 2:46 am
#5
Join Date: Mar 2005
Programs: Virgin Atlantic, Amex Plat
Posts: 58
Absolutely brilliant idea. And a really good implementation too. I've put in a few places I've been recently and it chimes very much with my experiences - in a way that standard climate records don't allow me to see. Thanks for this, I've bookmarked it and will be using it from now on when planning trips.
Jun 11, 2017, 3:46 pm
#6
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 48
Wonderful!
Feature ideas:
* Comparison between two locations - for example your graphs show "mm of rain" but the scale varies between locations, making it difficult to compare.
* Find a spot (per continent, say) with weather above grade X during month Y.
Thanks a lot for sharing!
Feature ideas:
* Comparison between two locations - for example your graphs show "mm of rain" but the scale varies between locations, making it difficult to compare.
* Find a spot (per continent, say) with weather above grade X during month Y.
Thanks a lot for sharing!
Jun 11, 2017, 4:02 pm
#7
Moderator: Delta SkyMiles, Luxury Hotels, TravelBuzz! and Italy
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 26,543
As this does not specifically address Luxury Hotels and Travel, I am moving the thread to the FT Travel Tools Forum.
Good luck...
Obscure2k
Moderator
Luxury Hotels & Travel
Good luck...
Obscure2k
Moderator
Luxury Hotels & Travel
Jun 12, 2017, 7:17 am
#8
Join Date: May 2017
Posts: 25
Very nice idea with a clear and easy to use interface!
There are many sites offering this kind of information but imo not as consolidated as your attempt. And even though there are many there is not "the" site to use for finding out when to go where. I always end up on different ones with different kind of information, when trying to find out where to go.
Great starting point and very useful tool!
There are many sites offering this kind of information but imo not as consolidated as your attempt. And even though there are many there is not "the" site to use for finding out when to go where. I always end up on different ones with different kind of information, when trying to find out where to go.
Great starting point and very useful tool!
Jul 3, 2017, 2:13 pm
#10
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2015
Posts: 24
Thanks very much for the comments everybody. Have noted side-by-side comparison and "Find a spot with weather above grade X during month Y" as features to add, along with 'C>'F conversion. Have quite limited time at the moment to work on it but hoping to find a bit more time when summer winds down.
Jul 7, 2017, 5:10 am
#11
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 24
Great work, thank you! ^
I usually use Wikipedia to get an overview of the best time to visit; your website makes all other options to check the weather data unnecessary. Just two questions: Is it possible to include the average rainy/snowy days as well as the monthly sunshine hours? Imho, especially the number of rainy days gives you a better idea of how the weather will turn out than just the rainfall in mm.
I usually use Wikipedia to get an overview of the best time to visit; your website makes all other options to check the weather data unnecessary. Just two questions: Is it possible to include the average rainy/snowy days as well as the monthly sunshine hours? Imho, especially the number of rainy days gives you a better idea of how the weather will turn out than just the rainfall in mm.
Jul 9, 2017, 10:15 am
#12
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2015
Posts: 24
Yes, it is possible to do chance of rain. Initially I considered using that as the primary metric but opted for mm as figured it would be slightly more familiar to most people. In an ideal world I would have both, but 1) I wanted to prioritise simplicity as much as possible and 2) I am pushing against very tight infrastructure constraints; the system is unbelievably data intensive with ~275,000 global lat/lon points * 365 days * 7 variables = not far off 1bn individual data fields in the DB at the moment. And creating each new variable dataset has its own challenges in terms of downloading, parsing, time-averaging and saving to the DB. So definitely one I'll add to the shortlist but it may need an upgrade on my server plan first!
Jul 10, 2017, 1:13 am
#13
Join Date: May 2014
Location: Great Britain
Programs: Air: QR Silver. BA Silver Emirates, Hotels: CC Gold, IHG Spire AMB, Hilton Diamond.
Posts: 1,487
The core dataset is 1979-2010. On top of that are added various observational sets which enhance the accuracy around populated / famous places ... time frame on these depends on how long there has been an accurate weather station for ... in some cases 50 years+ I think.
One thing I should have emphasised is that you can type exact hotels into it.
A good example is hotels on the coast of Sri Lanka .... big differences in weather between east and west coast for instance, and even hotels which look relatively close to each other can have quite big differences. You wouldn't realise this if you were just putting "Sri Lanka climate" into google I don't think.
One thing I should have emphasised is that you can type exact hotels into it.
A good example is hotels on the coast of Sri Lanka .... big differences in weather between east and west coast for instance, and even hotels which look relatively close to each other can have quite big differences. You wouldn't realise this if you were just putting "Sri Lanka climate" into google I don't think.
Nice work :-)
Jul 10, 2017, 6:48 pm
#14
FlyerTalk Evangelist
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Posts: 10,820
Just took a quick look. Looks very good! In addition to the other features, I found that it had the info for a relatively obscure location I typed in.
Thanks for this effort and product!
Thanks for this effort and product!
Jul 16, 2017, 9:13 pm
#15
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Montreal
Posts: 247
Seconded! Really handy!
If you're looking for suggestions (and not sure how feasible this would even be) but as a traveler, I always like knowing how busy a given area is with tourists. So for example, if I were going to Japan, it would be great to know that during Golden Week certain areas will be teeming with tourists.
But I realize this is a pretty big ask ;-)
If you're looking for suggestions (and not sure how feasible this would even be) but as a traveler, I always like knowing how busy a given area is with tourists. So for example, if I were going to Japan, it would be great to know that during Golden Week certain areas will be teeming with tourists.
But I realize this is a pretty big ask ;-)