Wind on the chart
Last updated August 21, 2026
The one number a lake crew checks before anything else, on the chart, where the boat is, turning with the boat.
Wind decides a lake day. It decides which shore is workable, whether a canopy goes on this afternoon or tomorrow, and which way the barge drifts while the crew sets a lift. So it is on the chart: a small arrow and a number in the status strip, and the same chip beside the dispatch map in the office.
Reading it
The number is speed in miles per hour and where it is coming from — 12 mph from the NW. When gusts run well above the steady speed, they are shown too. The arrow points the way the wind is going, which is what a flag on a dock shows and what you read off the water. Under a mile an hour it just says Calm.
In follow-me
With the chart in follow-me and heading-up, the chart rotates to the boat's course. The arrow rotates with it, so it keeps pointing downwind over the water rather than over the phone. Turn the boat and the arrow stays true.
Where it comes from
Weather data by Open-Meteo.com, read for the point the chart is centered on and refreshed every fifteen minutes. On the dispatch map it is read at the center of the lake the day is on. When there is no reading — no signal, or the source is down — the chip disappears rather than showing a stale number. It is a reading, not a forecast, and it is not a substitute for looking at the water.
The chip needs signal to refresh. Offline, it keeps the last reading it had for a quarter of an hour and then goes away, like everything else on the chart that could be wrong.
Still stuck? Ask us — or go back to the help center.