Would you like to be part of a closed beta-test for an easy-to-use web-based tool that tries to forecast turbulence for flights within the continental United States? If so, please contact me.

Progress. (Time zone mismatches are intentional; displaying all times relative to the departure point.) pic.twitter.com/ZRKSB3oJxv

— Jason McIntosh (@JmacDotOrg) January 2, 2016

Rough in aspect and coarse in predictive power, the tool’s reached only a shadow of its full potential, with many improvements in development already. I consider its current state a minimum-viable product, however: better than nothing, and I hope demonstrably so. I’d like to get it in front of interested users as soon as I can, such that I can start folding course-corrective feedback into the project as early as possible.

Unusually for my own projects, I need to commence this as a closed beta for various boring reasons. Not all of its datasources have graduated beyond the web-scraping level yet, for one thing, with proper third-party APIs extant but expensive. I’d like to convince myself of this project’s utility and aim before I invest in tying those in.