An emagram is a thermodynamic diagram that plots air temperature and dew point against altitude. For a paraglider pilot it answers the questions the surface forecast cannot: how high the thermals will go, whether they will form cumulus clouds or stay blue, where an inversion will cap the day, and whether the atmosphere will overdevelop into showers or thunderstorms by the afternoon.
Lift the surface parcel along the dry adiabat and you get the dry thermal top and the condensation level (LCL), which is the cloud base. Follow it further along the moist adiabat and you get the equilibrium level (EL), the cloud top. From the same sounding the tool derives the 0 °C level, CAPE, CIN (the capping inversion), the trigger temperature the ground has to reach before convection starts, the LFC, and from those a verdict on overdevelopment and thunderstorm risk.
Pick a launch site or click the map, choose tomorrow's date and the hour you expect the strongest thermals, then fetch the forecast sounding. Compare the trigger temperature with the forecast surface temperature: if the ground never gets there, the day stays flat. A cloud base well above the dry thermal top means classic cumulus; a cloud top far above the base means the day is likely to overdevelop, and you want to be on the ground before it does. You can also paste a real radiosonde table, for example the Payerne ascent, instead of using the model data.
Forecast soundings come from Open-Meteo (ICON, ECMWF IFS, GFS and AROME HD). Model soundings smooth out valley inversions and local terrain effects, which in the Alps can matter a lot. Treat the result as a planning aid, not as a flight briefing: always cross-check it against the official MeteoSwiss and SHV aviation forecast, and against what the sky actually does.
Built by FLYwithMIKI, a paragliding school in Kriens, Central Switzerland, offering complete pilot training to the SHV / IPPI 4 licence in small groups, taught in English, German and Hungarian.
Paragliding courses · Live flight weather · AI weather briefing · FAQ · Contact