ICON

ICON (Icosahedral Nonhydrostatic) is a numerical weather prediction model from Germany's national weather service, DWD. In marine forecasting, it provides gridded forecasts for wind, pressure, rain, temperature and related weather fields used by sailors, power boaters and offshore crews to assess expected conditions on the water.

For passage planning, ICON is valuable as an independent forecast source to compare with ECMWF and GFS. Agreement between models can improve Forecast Confidence; disagreement may indicate changing systems, local effects or timing uncertainty, prompting a more conservative route, departure window or sail plan.

In PredictWind, ICON can be viewed alongside other models in maps, tables and routing tools, and downloaded as GRIB data in the Offshore App when bandwidth matters. Comparing ICON with high-resolution and global models helps crews spot trends, verify wind shifts and make safer decisions before and during a passage.