What’s New in PhotoWeather: Mid-December 2025

December brings some exciting additions for coastal and landscape photographers, plus improvements that make getting started with PhotoWeather faster than ever. Here’s what shipped.

1. Wave Data for Coastal Locations (Pro)

PhotoWeather now includes marine wave forecasts for locations near coastlines. If you shoot seascapes, coastal storms, or dramatic wave action, you can now build rules around ocean conditions.

New fields available:

Significant Wave Height – Combined height of wind waves and swell. Use this for overall sea state.
Swell Height – Long-period waves traveling from distant storms. Great for timing those powerful, organized breakers.
Wind Wave Height – Locally generated chop. Useful for distinguishing calm swells from rough, wind-driven conditions.
Wave Period – Time between wave crests. Longer periods (8+ seconds) typically mean more powerful, photogenic breaks.
Wave Direction – Where waves are coming from. Helps you plan compositions relative to the coastline.

Example rule for dramatic coastal conditions:

Swell Height ≥ 1.5m
Wave Period ≥ 8s
Wind Speed ≤ 15 km/h

This finds big, organized swells with manageable wind for cleaner spray patterns.

Note: Wave data is available for locations within approximately 50 km of the coastline. If your location is further inland, these fields won’t appear.

2. Aerosol Breakdowns: See What’s in the Air (Pro)

Ever wondered why some days the air looks crystal clear while others have a hazy quality even without clouds? Atmospheric aerosols are the answer, and you can now track them.

New fields from ECMWF’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service:

AOD 550 (Aerosol Optical Depth) – Overall atmospheric clarity. Lower is clearer.
- Below 0.1 = Excellent clarity for landscapes and astrophotography
- 0.1–0.3 = Good conditions
- Above 0.5 = Noticeable haze
Dust AOD – Saharan dust and other mineral particles. Creates warm-toned atmospheric haze that can enhance sunset colors.
Smoke AOD – Wildfire smoke and pollution. Grey/brown haze that typically degrades image quality.
Sea Salt AOD – Marine aerosols from ocean spray. Common in coastal areas, creates subtle atmospheric depth.

Example rule for ultra-clear astrophotography conditions:

AOD 550 ≤ 0.08
Total Cloud Coverage ≤ 5%
Moon Illumination ≤ 10%

For landscape photographers chasing crisp, high-contrast shots, try:

AOD 550 ≤ 0.15
Visibility ≥ 20 km

3. Upper Air Dynamics: See the Invisible Atmosphere (Pro)

New dynamics fields reveal what’s happening in the upper atmosphere—the invisible machinery that creates dramatic cloud formations and storm structure.

Key fields now available:

Wind Shear – Indicates storm organization potential. High shear often means more visually striking storm structure.
Vertical Motion (Omega) – Rising and sinking air patterns that drive cloud formation.
Storm-Relative Helicity – Rotation potential for identifying supercell-type storms with dramatic cloud bases.
Ice Fraction – Ice crystal content in clouds, essential for predicting halos, sun dogs, and other optical phenomena.
Simulated Radar Reflectivity – Model-predicted storm intensity without needing actual radar.

Photography applications:

Lenticular clouds – Vertical motion + moisture profiles reveal when stable wave clouds will form
Storm structure – Shear and helicity identify which storms will have the most photogenic rotating updrafts
Optical phenomena – Ice fraction combined with sun angle predicts halo and sun dog conditions
Dramatic skies – Atmospheric instability metrics help you find days with towering cumulonimbus development

This is the difference between knowing “there might be a storm” and knowing “this storm will have organized structure worth photographing.”

4. Guided Setup: Create Multiple Rules in Seconds (All Users)

A new “Guided Setup” button on your dashboard walks you through creating rules based on what you actually like to photograph.

Here’s how it works:

Pick your locations – Select one or more spots where you shoot
Choose your interests – Landscapes? Aurora? Golden hour? Winter scenes? Pick as many as you like from nine photography categories
Select templates – See only the templates that match your interests, and pick multiple at once
Instant feedback – Watch the live count update: “Adding 4 templates × 2 locations = 8 rules”

Hit create, and all your rules are set up in one go. No more adding them one by one.

This is available to everyone from the dashboard—new users and existing users alike. If you’ve been meaning to expand your rule coverage but haven’t gotten around to it, Guided Setup makes it painless.

New User Onboarding

First time signing up? The onboarding flow now guides you through the same location → interests → templates process, plus helps you configure email notifications and calendar sync before you hit the dashboard. You’ll be fully set up and receiving alerts within minutes of creating your account.

5. Mobile Weather Charts (All Users)

The weather charts page now works better on phones and tablets:

Touch-friendly metric selection
Better layout on smaller screens
Easier scrolling through time periods

Planning a shoot on the go? Pull up the charts on your phone and check conditions without switching to a laptop.

6. Bug Fix: Location Creation (All Users)

Fixed an issue that sometimes caused errors when creating new locations. Location saving is now more reliable.

7. Interactive Map for Location Picking (All Users)

Adding locations just got a lot easier. You can now use an interactive map to pick your shooting spots instead of typing in coordinates manually.

Click anywhere on the map to drop a pin, or search for a place by name and fine-tune the exact position. The map shows you precisely where your location will be set, making it easy to target that specific overlook, beach access point, or mountain viewpoint you have in mind.

This is especially useful when:

Scouting new spots – Browse the map to find interesting terrain features
Precise positioning – Place your location exactly where you’ll be standing, not just the nearest town
Remote areas – Drop a pin anywhere, even places without addresses

The map appears when creating or editing any location. Your existing locations remain unchanged—this just gives you a more visual way to add new ones.

8. Directional Weather Intelligence: Now 24 Points (Pro)

The system that powers rainbow, golden hour, and fiery sunset predictions just got a major upgrade.

Previously, PhotoWeather sampled weather in two directions: toward the sun and opposite the sun. That worked, but it missed conditions off to the sides.

Now it samples 24 points arranged in a full ring around your location—8 compass directions at 3 distances (25 km, 50 km, and 100 km). This means dramatically better accuracy for:

Rainbow detection – Catches rain approaching from any angle, not just directly opposite the sun
Golden hour potential – Understands horizon conditions in all directions
Fiery red sky predictions – Sees cloud formations that could catch the light

If you missed the deep dive on how this works, read the full explanation. It’s one of the features that sets PhotoWeather apart from traditional weather apps.

That’s the mid-December update. The wave data and aerosol fields open up new possibilities for coastal and landscape photographers who want to understand not just “is it cloudy?” but the full picture of what’s happening in the atmosphere.

Questions or feedback? Reach out at support@photoweather.app.

Clear skies, Pontus