Blog › 1 September 2026
Version 2.1 — how sure is the forecast, and what is the wind actually doing?
Tuesday 1 September 2026 — London Kitesurfers — by Alan Jay
Version 2.1 of the London Kitesurfers app is on the App Store now, a free update hot on the heels of version 2.
Version 2 was about breadth — spots anywhere in the world, and the app on your wrist. Version 2.1 is about trust. Two questions decide whether you drive to the beach: how sure is this forecast? and what is the wind actually doing right now? This release takes both seriously.
“How sure is this?” — ensemble confidence on every spot
A forecast that says “16 knots” is hiding something: sometimes the models are certain, sometimes they are shrugging. Every spot page now has a How sure is this? section that tells you which it is, in plain English — for example: “Confidence: looking solid for 12 kt+ — 89% chance in the window · best around 19:00.”
Behind it sits the Met Office ensemble — the same forecast run many times with slightly different starting conditions. Open Chance of wind — next 54 h and you get a chart where the shaded band is where 80% of the ensemble outcomes land and the line is its middle. A narrow band means the atmosphere has made up its mind; a wide one means keep your plans loose.
Below the chart, today and tomorrow get straight probabilities: the chance of 12 kt+, 15 kt+, 18 kt+, 22 kt+ and 28 kt+. So “is it worth the drive?” becomes a number — 15 kt+ at 80% tomorrow reads rather differently from 41% today. It deliberately covers only the next 54 hours: beyond that the honest answer is “too early to say”, so the app says nothing rather than something made up.
Report wind — tell everyone what the beach is really doing
Forecasts argue; anemometers are sparse; but there is usually a kiter standing on the beach who knows the answer. Next to Live wind on the map there is now a Report wind button. On the beach, tap it, say what the wind is doing, and your report appears for other LKSA users looking at that spot — real observations from real riders, alongside the model forecasts and the weather stations.
It works at community spots too, so a spot one of us added in Wales or Greece can carry a “actually blowing 18 kt cross-on” from someone who is there. The more of us who report, the better every screen in the app gets — please use it.
The day, summarised
The map now leads with a one-line plain-English read of the selected day — “SW 20–32 kt, 08:00–20:00 BST — gusty, size down for the top end” — with the best spots starred. Tap it and the day sheet opens: the summary in full, who’s going where, and a ranked list of good kiting picks, each with its green window, wind, quality score and tides. It is the “where should I go on Wednesday?” answer on one screen.
Community spots get the full forecast page
In version 2 a community spot showed you a forecast; in 2.1 it shows you the forecast. Shared community spots now open on the same forecast page as LKSA spots: seven day chips, the day card with tide times and best-tide window, the good-wind window, the hourly slider with the wind arrow on the map, and the multi-model chart underneath.
Times on a community spot page are the spot’s local time, labelled as such — when you are planning Dakhla from London, 14:00 means 14:00 on that beach, not here. And the community layer keeps filling in: the map now has member-added spots along the north-west coast, North Wales and beyond, each one importable with a tap.
Your year on the water
Sessions gains an Overview: days on the water this year, sessions, hours, total distance, average and top speed, longest session, windiest session and most-visited spot. It is the end-of-season pub argument, settled with data. (Mine says 20 days and just over 1,000 km this year, which I intend to improve before the water gets properly cold.)
Plenty of smaller things
Tapping a cluster of overlapping pins now asks which spot you meant instead of guessing. Planning a trip starts a Live Activity two hours before you leave, so the conditions ride along on your lock screen. Plus the usual tail of fixes and polish across iPhone, iPad and Mac.
As always: no LKSA account, no LKSA login, no ads, no tracking. Your spots, sessions and trips live on your own devices — and a wind report is just the wind, the spot and the time.
Tell me what’s wrong with it
Please try it — especially Report wind, which only works if people use it — and send me feedback, bugs or ideas. I will be at the LKSA drinks tomorrow, Wednesday 2 September, and happy to demonstrate any of it there; otherwise ask in the chat or DM me on WhatsApp.
Get version 2.1 on the App Store →
See you on the beach.
Weather data by Open-Meteo.com, with model data from the Met Office, ECMWF, NOAA, DWD, Météo-France and MET Norway. Chance-of-wind contains Met Office data © Crown copyright, CC BY-SA 4.0. WindGuru.cz for widgets and PRO forecast embeds. Forecasts, probabilities and reports are guidance — conditions on the water are yours to judge.