Ask ten coastal sailors and hill walkers which wind app they trust and you will get ten answers, usually delivered with a complaint about the one they used last weekend. No single tool is best at everything. A kitesurf spot forecast, a cross-Channel passage and a walk along a Snowdonia ridge all ask slightly different questions of the same wind data. What follows is a practical comparison of the apps worth keeping on your phone, and how to use them together rather than in isolation.
Two people can open the same app and take completely different things from it. A dinghy sailor wants to know when the sea breeze will fill in and whether it will swing; a hill walker wants to know how much worse the wind will be on the summit than in the car park. Both need the timing right, because a forecast for a windy afternoon is no obstacle to a morning on the water.
Before you judge any app, decide what matters for your day out:
Most apps handle the first two well. Far fewer handle the rest, which is why most experienced users keep two or three installed and ignore the others.
The best starting point for most people. Windy presents an animated map with several models behind it — global ones such as ECMWF, GFS and ICON, plus higher-resolution regional models where available, including the Met Office's UKV and Météo-France's AROME. The point forecast gives you a table of wind, gusts, rain and waves, and you can switch models with a couple of taps. Learn where that model menu is early; it is the difference between a smoothed global picture and a much sharper view of an estuary or a coastal headland. Expect advertising on the free version.
Plain, fast and UK-focused. The great strength is that forecasts sit alongside live observations from nearby weather stations, so you can see what the wind is doing right now rather than guessing from a coloured arrow. Ideal for a quick check before you leave the house, and useful for spotting when a forecast is running consistently under or over the mark. You can switch between knots and mph.
Spot-based and beloved of windsurfers and kitesurfers. Each location has its own page with a compact table of several models, plus webcams and station readings where they exist. It is not the prettiest interface, but it is quick to read at a glance once you know your way around, and the station data is invaluable for a last-minute sanity check.
Built with sailors in mind. It runs its own downscaled models alongside the standard global ones and adds routing and passage-planning tools, with some features behind a subscription. This is the one to open when you are planning a longer passage and want to compare how two independent models treat the same stretch of coast. Overkill for a two-hour potter.
The Met Office app gives the official UK picture, including the shipping forecast for sea areas and mountain-area guidance for walkers. Yr, from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, is free, uncluttered and good for UK hills, with clear precipitation timing. For the mountains specifically, the Mountain Weather Information Service publishes text forecasts for the main UK upland areas — cloud, wind and conditions written by people who understand what a big ridge day feels like. Text can be more useful than a number when you are deciding whether to commit.
Every app is a window onto somebody else's model. Global models handle the big picture several days ahead; regional models with grids of a kilometre or two pick out coastal detail, but only for a shorter horizon. That is why a five-day forecast for a specific bay should be treated as a rough indication and a 24-hour forecast as something you can plan around.
A few habits make any app more reliable:
Little things decide which app you actually open. A home-screen widget beats a beautiful map you have to dig into. Dark mode matters at 5am in a tent. Saved locations save typing with cold hands. Downloadable offline forecasts are worth more than any extra layer of data when you are out of signal. And units matter: mariners work in knots, most walkers in mph, so set each app once and stop converting in your head.
Two apps and a notebook will serve you better than five apps and no plan. If you are new to coastal sailing or to hill days in strong wind, book training with a recognised provider and learn the skills properly; no forecast can substitute for experience, decent kit and a willingness to change your mind. Check the marine or mountain forecast issued on the day, tell someone where you are going, and treat every screen as a starting point rather than the final word.
Photo: Eric Planet Olympus / Pexels
Wind speeds appear as mph, km/h, knots and the Beaufort scale. Here's how to convert between them quickly and judge...
Gusts can hit without warning. Here's how walkers, cyclists and commuters should react in the first minute of a...
Wind forecasts give an average speed and a peak gust. Knowing which one to plan around — and reading the gap between...
Your guide to gales, wind, and weather.
