Skip to main content

This stunning interactive map shows the world’s weather conditions in real time

ventusky weather map inmeteo japan header
InMeteo
We’ve marveled at this mesmerizing map of cargo ships plying the oceans of the worlds, been amazed by another depicting the birth of major cities over thousands of years, and charmed by this one showcasing London’s rich and varied past.

So be prepared to be wowed by yet another stunning online map creation, this one showing real-time weather conditions around the world.

As informative as it is beautiful, the “Ventusky” web app is the work of Czech-based meteorological firm InMeteo.

The interactive map, spotted recently by Quartz, lets you pull up all kinds of weather stats, including temperature, precipitation, cloud cover, and wind speed. The temperature and wind speed maps, with their swirling lines and patches of pretty color-coded data, are a joy to simply gaze at regardless of the information they offer.

You can zoom in close to a particular location, or see the world’s weather patterns that are enveloping the planet right now by pulling out and viewing the entire map at once.

“The Earth’s weather functions as an interdependent system,” InMeteo explains on its website. “For example, a hurricane in the Atlantic has the ability to influence the distribution of pressure formations in Europe. Occasionally, it may even make its way to Europe itself as a post-tropical storm. The Ventusky application allows for the illustration of the interdependence of the entire system, displaying the development of pressure, wind, cloud cover, precipitation, and temperature on the map.”

But it’s not all about the here-and-now. The site is primarily a weather forecast tool, accessible by simply clicking on a date on the calendar at the bottom of the display and moving the time slider back and forth.

And there’s more. Hit Settings top right and you can play about with the animation controls, enabling the artist in you to create a look even more pleasing to the eye.

Fancy a go? You can check out the fabulous Ventusky map right now by clicking here.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Google Maps now shows EV owners which charging stations are occupied
2019 Jaguar I-Pace First Drive

The work of a Google Maps developer is never done. The app began showing users the location of electric car charging stations in 2018, and an update released in April 2019 tells motorists in real time how many spots are free at a given location. It's all part of the tech giant's mission to make owning an electric car as convenient as driving one powered by gasoline or diesel.

The app provides useful information such as the number and types of ports available at each location, their charging speeds, and notes about the business where a station is located. You'll know whether it's near a Starbucks, or five miles away from the exact middle of nowhere. You'll also find reviews from drivers who've already used the station, giving you the opportunity to choose the best one in the area — so long as you have enough juice left in your battery pack, that is.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more