Laid on top of a beautiful 3-D visualization of the world seen at night, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has launched WeatherView, a stunning new real-time wind model that shows the world as it invisibly is: a glowing, swirling orb of eddies, vortexes, and atmospheric whirlpools.
Although the visualization can take a little time to load, it's worth it. WeatherView not only allows you to change the time to see current and future weather conditions around the world (try setting it to sundown halfway across America for a particularly lovely effect), but it also has a number of filters that you can apply to see how the wind and other temperature and atmospheric conditions relate.
Click on the temperature filter, for example, and the entire planet becomes as molten as the sun. The moisture filter fills the planet with quicksilver fog. Everywhere else, blue lines eddy and swirl, representing the unseen currents of the planet's winds.
You can check out NOAA's WeatherView wind model here.
[via CityLab]