37◼ SOLUTIONS Bloomberg Businessweek February 10, 2020
THEBOTTOMLINE Astheplanetwarms,surginginterestin weatherevents
suchashurricanes,floods,andheatwaveshashelpeddoublethesite’straffic
in thepastyear,to1.5millionvisitorsa day.A fewyearsago,IvoLukacovichauled 25 poundsofgear
upSwitzerland’sGotthardPassexpectingtospendthe
daysnow-kiting—glidingfrompeaktopeaktetheredto
a sailthesizeofa bedsheet.Butinsteadofthefavor-
ableconditionshe’dseenintheforecast,hefoundhim-
selfblindedbya freezingfogandhadtogiveupforthe
day.Althoughhealwaysobsessivelycombedthepredic-
tionsspitoutbyNASAsupercomputersorcrunchedby
Swissclimatescientiststofindjusttherightconditions,
“I’doftenstillfail,”Lukacovicsays.“I neededtocreate
myownversionoftheweatherforecasts.”
Unlikemostothersnow-kiters,Lukacovichadboth
thecodingchopsandthemoneytodothat:He’sa
programmer who founded and still owns the Czech
Republic’s biggest internet portal, Seznam.cz. Six years
ago he launched Windy.com, a website that aggregates
vast amounts of data to create hypergranular forecasts
and assessments of climate conditions ranging from sta-
ples such as temperature, rainfall, and cloud cover to
detailed looks at dew point, fire risk, air pollution, and
more. “We’re the only service in the world right now that
can sell this very complicated data to common peo-
ple,” says Lukacovic, 45. “That’s where we want to stay
a leader.”
Windy employs 15 full-time coders who translate raw
files into richly animated weather illustrations, with flowing
arrows that indicate wind speed and direction, a rainbow
of colors for data such as snow depth, and a sidebar
indicating anything from dust density to active fires. Surging
interest in data about extreme weather on a warming
planet—hurricanes, floods, and heat waves—has helped
double the site’s traffic in the past year, to 1.5 million visitors
a day. Although he declines to provide details, Lukacovic
says Windy has collected some €400,000 ($440,000) in
contributions and concluded several deals with companies
that topped out at about €100,000 each. The vast
majority of users today pay nothing, but he’s considering
a €20 annual subscription for as-yet-unspecified premium
services. Windy would be “very profitable,” Lukacovic says,
if just 3% of users signed up.
“Windy was a real game changer,” says John Kealy,
a former meteorologist at the U.K.’s Met Office who’s
now researching mathematical forecasting models at
the University of Exeter. “It bridges the gap between
national weather services and the public in a way I hadn’t
seen before.” The Prague-based company taps into the
mountains of climate information becoming available as
space agencies invest billions in new satellites. Windy draws
data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, Meteoblue AG at Switzerland’s University of
Basel, and the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service,
a nonprofit that offers feeds from European satellites.
The latter provides Windy with air quality and pollution
data, allowing Lukacovic to create animations that showwhere the wind is carrying nitrogen oxide, sulfur, carbon
monoxide, and other dangerous pollutants. That kind of
info will become increasingly valuable as countries step
up efforts to monitor and verify pledges to cut emissions,
says Vincent-Henri Peuch, chief of the Copernicus service.
The goal is to help regulators pinpoint greenhouse gas
emissions like “drops of ink released in a pool of water.”
Lukacovic faces growing competition as dozens
ofcompaniesanalyzeclimateinformationtoimprove
decision-making by everyone from transportation plan-
ners to real estate agents. Assist, a software house
backed by consultant Capgemini SE, is using Copernicus
air quality data to help airlines reduce maintenance
costs. France’s Mon Toit Solaire uses its measurements
to improve placement of solar panels. Finnish startup
AeroZee offers pinpointed information on air pollution
to potential homebuyers.
Anda hostofservicesarebroadlyavailabletothe
public—AccuWeather and the Weather Channel offer vast
amounts of free info and boast financial firepower, having
received backing from the likes of IBM, NBCUniversal,
and Blackstone Group. Lukacovic says his service can
thrive because its website and app use proprietaryA lostdayofsnow-
kitinginspired
Lukacovictostarthis
forecastingbusinesscompression and transmission systems that let its
complex graphics load quickly, even on a sailboat in a
thunderstorm or a mountainside in a blizzard. The goal
is to cater to people whose safety and well-being often
depend on knowing the weather, and who would be willing
to pay for information delivered in a simple, digestible
format. “We do not plan to compete with the big guys,”
Lukacovic says. “Our target users are people like sailors,
pilots, firemen—and kiters.” �Jonathan Tirone