That is what you called them. One is direction as in a vector, the other is as a weather vane shows. The two examples you gave are the former, the latter is the meteorological weather vane direction.
If I would ever see a map where the arrow would point against the flow, I would be totally confused.
Perhaps Wunderground indicator is the best of both worlds https://www.wunderground.com/weather/us/ca/san-francisco/KCASANFR1754 The arrow follows the flow of the wind, but the indicator is on the south.
Ok, i see the point. Some People prefer the ancient weather vane for display. That worked for decades, i think. But for common display in times of information age, this changed mostly to standardized and more logic display.
What happens when i work with mechanical wind vane logic on paper or cyberspace:
Windsocks do form some kind of an arrow too
But the âWindarrowâ is the only form of icon you can turn 360 degrees neutrallyâŚ
The decision is likely based on what the presenter of the information perceives that their audience will understand the easiest.
Some web sites explain their logic such as:
quote from seabreeze.com.au
" How To Read The Wind Direction
The arrows indicate the direction the wind is going based on North being at the top of the screen and West being at the left.
This concept confuses some people first off, because they are expecting the arrows to work like a weather vane and point towards the arriving wind.
It can also be confusing if youâre looking at your computer monitor in a Southerly direction, as all the directions will be reversed.
We had to choose whether the arrows were indicating where wind went, or where it came from.
We figured that most things in life, such street signs (e.g. one way signs), swell direction arrows and traffic cops all point in the direction that something is going.
Pointing where the wind is going also makes good sense when the arrows are overlaid over a map
Take a âNortherlyâ wind, for example. âNorthâ is at the top of the screen (as maps generally have their northmost point at the top), and a âNortherlyâ is a wind that travels from the North to the South, so it is drawn as an arrow that points down - that is, pointing from North to South.
Easterly Example: An easterly wind heads from the east (right side of the screen) towards the west (left side of the screen), so the arrow is drawn pointing to the left."
https://www.seabreeze.com.au/graphs/help_wind.asp
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Meteorologists (like me!) ALWAYS always measure wind as âFrom-iesâ never as âTo-iesâ
We Meteorologists could care less what direction the wind is blowing to.
âThe wind is From the SW at 8 gusting to 14 mphâ
In aviation: âWind 230 degrees at 21 gusting 26 knotsâ Translation: Wind is from 230 degrees or SW at 21 with gusts to 26 knots.
Hereâs another example: âThe Bow Echo is moving rapidly from to the northwest at speeds up to 65 miles per hour.â
Donât you mean âcouldnât care lessâ? If not, then you do care what direction the wind is blowing to.
(Sorry, one of my pet pieves? I think over half of Americans say this wrong.)
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It is all logic, when you are in a balloon. If you start and know there is wind from north, it pushes you to south. The only reason wind vanes are technically reversed is that the cardinal directions indicator is correct placed. This was also a solution not to confuse people. You can see geographic directions and wind direction in one view. As long the vane indicator is stationary and correctly mounted.
But that is true all of the world. Northern wind is wind blowing from the north towards the south. no one is disputing that. But this discussion is about the way to represent that info. When arrows are used on a map, I think they always follow the flow of the wind, so pointing towards the south.
The plane takes off (from the treadmill)! 
Thereâs no problem with the unit. If you apply 180 degree offset then your wind vector is 180 degrees errant. Do NOT do this. When you see 270/33 is means west wind at 33 knots. If you apply the offset you would be reporting 90/33. And in weather systems thatâs the difference between post and pre frontal passage (on the east coast of the USA).
Funny thread. I see both sides but the way I think about it is that the symbols are not weather vanes but represent a âparcelâ/piece of air in the wind flow⌠with the point of it pointing into the wind⌠like a jet plane 
Iâm more upset that I cannot have the option to show pressure with 2 decimal places⌠i.e 30.03 instead of 30.028" 
I thought I read somewhere when I got my first WeatherFlow Tempest that you could reverse the wind barbs to point into the wind not away from the wind. I havenât been able to find that feature. WeatherFlow seems to go against meteorology standards and shows the barbs going away from my location.
I work and play in the aviation world. When I fly over the field and look at the tetrahedron on the field itâs pointed end does not face the way the wind is going, but the direction the wind is coming from.
When youâre outside do you turn you back to the wind to see which way it is going or do you face it?
WeatherFlowâs wind barbs should point into the wind not away from it.
Which wind barb are you referring to?
Main screen/grid view:
Or graph view?
Maybe the posts above yours can shed some light on the subject.
Looks fine to meâŚany other way would confuse. This is meteorology, not aviation!
The nice thing about GUIs is the other guy is always wrong. Thereâs nothing unreasonable about having features that let the various user communities tune their look+feel to meet their way of looking at the world.
or you can educate people to make sure what they are seeing is common practice and not necessarily wrong.
Tempest has embraced a fairly new âbest practicesâ / âstandardsâ (in their mind) by displaying the barbs in this way.
The staff has doubled down in this thread that they are correct and the tone from them is condescending at times to us unwashed masses that donât embrace these âbest practices.â They point to others that use the same graphic representation as proof we are wrong for asking about this.
In all of history, a north wind meant the wind is blowing FROM the north, not that is blowing TO the south.
All weather vanes and indicators pointed to the north to indicate this state of wind direction. Where is the wind coming FROM, not where is it going TO.
The problem is what the graphic representation is actually representing. Tempest states it is a VECTOR representation, not a cardinal indicator.
OK, Iâll give you that. But therein lies the issue.
A vector requires TWO pieces of information. MAGNITUDE and DIRECTION. BOTH must be indicated by the graphic symbol to be a vector, otherwise it is a cardinal indicator.
The graphic indicators on the Tempest software only display a SINGLE piece of information, DIRECTION. In the history of weather, this is meant as where the wind is FROM.
By not showing a VECTOR, Tempest has chosen to confuse the issue on exactly what these barbs indicate. Are they FROM or TO? There are no tool tips in the software, nothing, that would give the other REQUIRED piece of information for it to be a true VECTOR, in which case, yes, the indicator would show graphically that the wind is going that way with that much magnitude.
Tempest has defended this choice by stating that since others do it, it must be OK.
Tempest, I really donât care who else is doing it. IT IS NOT OK.
This is confusing. By only giving one piece of information, direction, with no other clues, yes, people are going to interpret it as wind coming from, not going to.
If you want it to be going to, THEN PROVIDE THE OTHER NECESSARY PIECE OF INFORMATION TO INDICATE IT IS A VECTOR.
A vector REQUIRES TWO pieces of information to be represented. Say that over and over to yourself as many times as necessary until it sticks.
In the weather world, the wind directional vanes/barbs/etc. have ALWAYS indicated FROM, not TO. AND THEY STILL DO. It is a SINGLE piece of information. This is what your software represents in its current configuration, regardless of what you think it means.
Until this concept and understanding of the difference between vector and directional representation is embraced, and the software continues to show only ONE piece of information, you can expect continued confusion. And rightly so.
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Graph view, itâs the one that has created the confusion.
The clue is in the name Weatherâflowâ! not âWeather-originating-before-it-gets-toâ
Go with the flow man!
Itâs like a sign for a tap. Itâll point to where the water will go if you turn on the tap not point to the tap or a hose where itâll show the direction of the water not point to the nozzle. It also looks modern and not steam age.
Another example is a computer fan will show the direction the air flows to not from!!!
Thinking of it as like the Wifi icon you are looking at it from the instrument showing the info not the receiver having to read the device.
Enjoying the discussion.
I am no meteorologist but my interest in weather comes from flying and sailboat racing. I have looked at a lot of wind meters and weather charts in my time. By convention and tradition the wind is indicated where it is coming from. On a wind map with arrows, I do expect the arrows to point in the direction the wind is blowing (to). I think they have mixed metaphors a bit with their UI IMHO. When displaying the cardinal with a carrot indicator, it should be pointing in the direction of the source of the wind. Their UX guys just spent too much time in the design thinking session trying to fix something that was not broken.
I run my own display so I get to see what I expect. I otherwise love the system, so generally ok with its idiosyncrasies.
there are millions of use cases for unit vectors⌠vectors that have direction but always a length of 1 (you call that magnitude). It is still a vector if the length is 1. So your âREQUIREDâ answer is 1. You complain there is no tooltip to tell you the length is 1. Thatâs silly, and if you want to have the wind speed, it is displayed right next (or below it). You say that weatherflow is confusing, but to have it otherwise would be confusing in my opinion. Weatherflow is doing what many others are doing. Some do it reverse, but there is no clear definition that everybody agrees upon.
If wind is coming from the north, it flows towards the south and the arrow matches this flow direction.
If you are traveling from A to B someone halfway might point to A and say that you are coming from A (thatâs what you would like for the wind). If you want to indicate your travel direction along the route everybody will draw an arrow towards B (btw itâs a vector, and doesnât need to represent your travel speed to be a vector).