Here's a cool and useful planning visualization tool for winds-aloft that I came across which depicts a global wind model, which can be applied to winds-aloft flight planning along your route. http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-224.59,-25.33,536 You can drag the globe to any desired Lat and Long, or zoom in or out with a mouse wheel. You can also alter the date and time, or the hPa level within the URL link, then hit enter and this will change the altitude-wind depicted, as given in these examples: http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/07/21/0600Z/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=147.56,-24.17,317 http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/07/21/0600Z/wind/isobaric/700hPa/orthographic=147.56,-24.17,317 http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/07/21/0600Z/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=147.56,-24.17,317 You can also look forwards several days at what winds will be or backwards to what the winds were, two weeks ago if you want. You can also click on any point and it will give you the modelled wind velocity for that point. (useful for giving a heads-up of tropical cyclonic storm development and movement tend too) Now click on the word earth in the lower left and you'll get the tools - have fun! Caution: Obviously the model data is going to be the most accurate for periods within the next 6 hours, so the further forward you go the progressively less accurate will be the winds depicted. Nevertheless it can aid planning guidance out several days ahead. Use at your own risk, as it's a ballpark visualization tool, it is not an official forecast.
