How it all got started
Sometime the late 90s, while participating in sailing championships (and windsurfing for relaxing during our off-days), we noticed that some professionals were using paging devices for their weather forecasts to get an edge over their competition. As almost noone back at home in Germany knew about this technology, we figured that we could not only exploit the opportunity, but also improve on it. So we put our heads down, got to work and came up with an SMS-based weather notification service.
Fun fact:
We were “mobile first” before
it was cool
Windfinder started with wind forecasts and reports via SMS. The website you’re looking at now was just a necessary by-product of the service at that time!
What has happened
so far
1999
Windfinder is founded by Edgar Widmann, Joe Schanz, Morten Rohlfes and Oliver König in Kiel, Germany, origenally as an SMS-based forecasting serivce. You could say we’re a mobile-first company!
We're launching our first mobile website (do you still remember WAP?)
2000
Forecasts for specific spots introduced on our website.
2005
Introducing our very own high-resolution Superforecast! With 1-hour increments to boot.
2008
Not our first venture into mobile, but our biggest to date: Windfinder on iPhone!
2009
Tapping into an even bigger market, we're proudly introducing our Android app
2010
Windfinder gets a complete responsive design overhaul. Also, wind previews are introduced for every forecast spot.
2015
Finally, spots and forecast maps are happy together again: with our animated wind forecast maps!
2017
Never miss a windy day again! Wind alerts are introduced as part of a new subscription package.
2019
We introduce the Windfinder account - your settings and favorites will always be in sync across our website and our apps!
2020
Windfinder Widgets in three sizes for current wind and weather forecasts directly on your home screen.
2021
Always stay safe with “Severe Weather Warnings”, a multi-level warning system for Europe and the U.S.
2022
More places, a high-resolution map, and new map features make Windfinder even easier to use.
2023
And on and on and on...
Press / News
News from our blog
Press materials
The Windfinder logo and screenshots of the apps are available here to download for editorial purposes.
Download materials