Flight weather today — the launch index
🇦🇪 UAE
This is not a general forecast. It is a reading reinterpreted against drone operating criteria: wind and gust speed against your class's capability, visibility against the visual line-of-sight requirement, suspended dust against motor and lens wear, and air density against the thrust margin you have left.
This page sends your location off-site. Fetching weather is impossible without telling a data provider where you are, so your coordinates go to open-meteo.com for meteorology, air-quality-api.open-meteo.com for dust, and bigdatacloud.net to turn coordinates into a city name. We store nothing at our end, but those parties see your approximate location and IP address. This differs from the airspace checker, which computes everything inside your browser and sends your location nowhere. If you would rather not, pick the nearest city from the buttons instead of the "my location" button.
Pick a location above to start the reading.
The thresholds used, and why
| Factor | Amber | Red | Operational reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wind — light class | 6 m/s | 8 m/s | A light aircraft loses the ability to hold position long before you feel the wind on the ground |
| Wind — mid class | 8 m/s | 11 m/s | The figure in the manual is measured in ideal conditions; the practical threshold is a full step lower |
| Wind — heavy class | 10 m/s | 14 m/s | More capability, but far higher impact energy, so the acceptable margin is narrower |
| Gust spread above the mean | 4 m/s | 6 m/s | Turbulence is what brings aircraft down, not steady wind speed |
| Visibility | 5 km | 2 km | Visual line of sight is a legal requirement, not a personal preference |
| Suspended dust | 60 µg/m³ | 200 µg/m³ | Dust works into motor bearings, scratches lenses, and reduces cooling |
| Temperature | 41°C | 45°C | Battery performance degrades and air density falls, cutting flight time and thrust margin |
About the thrust-loss index: hot, low-density air means the propeller moves less air mass at the same RPM. In a UAE summer, density altitude can sit thousands of feet above your true altitude. The practical result: the motors run at a higher throttle percentage just to hold a hover, so flight time shortens and there is less reserve available to fight the wind. This is exactly why the same aircraft feels "weaker" in July than in January.
Why is dust the drone's first enemy in the Gulf?
Dust here is not only a visibility problem. Fine silica particles get into motor bearings, raising friction and winding temperature; they stick to the downward vision sensors and ruin precision hover; and they progressively scratch the lens coating in a way that cannot be repaired. The effect is cumulative and silent — you will not notice it in one flight, but in a gradual decline in motor life and image quality. The rule: after any flight in dusty air, clean the props, bearings and lens before storage.
Where does the data come from, and how accurate is it?
The readings come from open global weather models (Open-Meteo) and from the European CAMS air-quality model for dust. Grid resolution is on the order of a few kilometres, and this is not an official METAR airport observation. The difference shows clearly in three situations: sea breeze on the coast, vortices between towers in cities, and acceleration inside mountain wadis. In those locations specifically, trust your eyes and a small flag hung at the launch site more than any number.
