Winds aloft,
measured by aircraft
Every airliner knows its speed through the air and its speed over the ground. The difference is the wind. Our ADS-B receivers decode those numbers from the aircraft flying over Małopolska and the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, so this page shows the real wind and temperature at 8–13 km right now: the jet stream that carries our pico balloons around the world.
Wind and temperature by altitude
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Navy line: wind speed (km/h, top axis) · red line: air temperature (°C) · dashed: the float altitude of our pico balloons (~13 km). Last 2 hours, 1000 ft (300 m) steps; only altitudes with at least three aircraft.
Method
Modern airliners broadcast (ADS-B and Mode S) their true airspeed, heading, ground speed and track, plus Mach number. The vector difference between “through the air” and “over the ground” is the wind; Mach and airspeed give the outside air temperature. Decoding is done by readsb on our receivers.
We use only aircraft above 1500 m, with a fresh position, flying straight (bank under 5°), because in turns heading and airspeed disagree. Each aircraft gives at most one measurement every five minutes. No callsigns or flight paths are stored – only anonymous weather points.
Włostowice (KO00, near Kraków) and Chęciny (KO00, near Kielce). Updated every 5 minutes. An amateur measurement – compare with the jet stream on the 3D globe (GFS model) and with what our balloons actually did.