A Dazzling, Animated Map of the World's Winds, Rain, and Heat

To know when it’s about to roar or pour, you could check your favorite app or the National Weather Service. But if you prefer to have your senses dazzled, there’s the whirling, rainbow-streaked world of VentuSky, an animated forecasting model that depicts everything from precipitation to temperature to snow cover.

The free service, developed by the Czech company InMeteo, whips up weather forecasts for up to nine days in advance. (Note predicting that far ahead for things like storm strength and movement can be highly inaccurate.) Its mesmerizing, flowing winds have been done in other weather models, notably Windyty and Cameron Beccario’s Earth, but VentuSky’s various bells and whistles make it a nice addition to the genre. Here’s the monstrous Super Typhoon Nepartak on Wednesday lashing at Taiwan with gusts above 200 mph and a major precipitation bomb: