About us

Born in 2012, Meteo-Parapente is now the most famous paragliding weather website in Europe.

Unlike most of the other weather websites, serving data from national weather services, Meteo-Parapente runs its own weather prediction model. This model, designed ant tuned for paragliding, takes into account local weather parameters specific to our activities.

Meteo-Parapente is an independent weather website. It is 100% owned and operated by myself, with help from Katya and ponctual developers and consultants. This independence allows me to offer the best service for our flying community.

How it started

At the very beggining, the calculations were operated from my bedroom, at my parents' home. I had four ADSL lines installed to get enough bandwidth, and a massive setup to prevent noise and evacuate the heat. The forecast covered France and a small part of the Alps, only for the next day.

How its going

Thanks to your contributions, I was able to multiply the computing power by 33 times compared to the beggining.

This new computing power allowed extending the geographical coverage, produceing the forecasts for several days ahead and improving the quality of the predictions with finer resolution and much more input data.

Now the calculations run on a (small) supercomputer dedicated 24h/24 to Meteo-Parapente forecasts. This supercomputer is hosted in a real datacenter in Paris.

It is way more professional than before. But keep in mind that Meteo-Parapente is still a homemade "artisanal" website. I am alone to manage a huge computer infrastructure. I'm not Google, so please forgive when there are small hiccups. Like a good wine, it's getting better and better with time 😉

The amazing team

Nicolas

Paraglider pilot and sailing instructor, I have always been addicted to the wind. I am a self-taught computer programmer. This double interest in wind and coding naturally led me to found Meteo-Parapente, in 2012. I was 21 at that time.

I played a major role in the opening of the data of Météo-France models. I was awarded the Dataconnexions prize by Etalab and nominated as a Pioneer of open-data by the Open Data Institute.

As a recognized expert in meteorological data, I provide consultancy and services to major companies such as Engie, Total, Renault, Windy, Windguru...

Katya

After a successful career in the offshore oil and gas industry, Katya moved to France driven by her love for paragliding. Here, she got her tandem license while graduating from EMLyon International MBA.

With a deep understanding of data-science, Katya assists me on Meteo-Parapente algorithms. Her Master's degree in Probability and Statitics is put to good use. Katya is also a brain of Meteo-Parapente's strategy and project management. If you send us an email, that's probably her who will answer.