We’ve all seen those somewhat complicated NOAA weather forecasts with the 500 millibar lines and the frontal boundaries and unless you’re a meteorologist, or just really good at reading those charts, they’ve never really provided a good visual of what the wind is ACTUALLY doing.

Thanks to MIT research scientists, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, who now lead Google’s “Big Picture” visualization research group, we’ve been given a never-before-seen look at the wind.

What’s even more amazing is to see the animated version of this picture.

As more detailed live data sources become available around the world, we’ll likely be seeing more of these images available.