By Marcin Wojtyczka
8 minutes readUseful weather resources and links.
Forecasts for coastal and limited offshore sailing
Provides weather radar, wind (GSF, ECMWF and local models with resolution up to 3km), waves and many more forecasts for kiters, surfers, paragliders, pilots, sailors and anyone else. It can be used via browser or installed as app on smartphones. The app is great for coastal sailing but has limitations for offshore sailing as you cannot download the grib files and work with it offline. As a workaround you can take screenshots but you will not be able to use it with satellite phone.
Forecasts for coastal and offshore sailing
To obtain forecasts one of the following app has to be installed (tablet, smarphone, pc):
- PredictWind App for inshore and coastal sailing (full PredictWind features without grib viewer to work offline)
- PredictWind Offshore for offshore sailing (offline grib viewer, gmdss forecasts, satelite imagery, satellite/SSB connection)
The apps are free but many features like higher model resolutions and weather routing are paid.
Useful manuals:
7-day grib forecasts that can be downloaded locally
Provides worldwide Surface Wind (10m above sea level), Surface Pressure, Visibility, Cloud Cover and Precipitation forecast charts. The charts are derived mainly from the 0.25 degree GFS (Global Forecast System) model which is run four times daily, with forecast output to 180 hours (7.5 days). Higher-resolution Surface Wind charts are available for parts of the worlds and use other models.
GRIB files viewer (PC only)
Provides worldwide grib files to download and view offline. Forecasts are based on GFS model.
Very good forecasts for Mediterranean (GFS + regional models)
https://www.lamma.rete.toscana.it
“Vento a 10m” means surface wind; “Raffica” means gusts; “Altezza Onda” means wave height
Good forecasts for Baltic & North Sea
Polish forecasts and warnings in textual form: https://baltyk.imgw.pl
Polish weather forecast service: https://maps.meteo.pl
Polish weather service with excellent synoptic explanations: https://www.meteo.pl
German forecasts: https://www.dwd.de
Swedish forecasts: https://www.smhi.se
Spain forecasts for Atlantic coast (Portugal to Africa) and Mediterranean
https://www.aemet.es - click “Predicción” to get textual info and “Mapas” to view charts
https://www.eltiempo.es - very fast service
Shipping forecast and gale warnings for North Sea and North Atlantic
Pilot (Routing) Charts
Pilot charts are very useful for long distance passage planning. They depict averages in prevailing winds and currents, air and sea temperatures, wave heights, ice limits, visibility, barometric pressure, and weather conditions at different times of the year around the world.
Pressure charts for different levels
https://www.weatheronline.co.uk - all kinds of charts (surface & 500mb pressure charts etc.) covering the whole globe
https://ocean.weather.gov/Atl_tab.php - charts (surface & 500mb pressure charts, wind & wave) from Ocean Prediction Center (OPC) covering Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/maps-and-charts/surface-pressure - synoptic surface pressure charts from UK Met Office
https://www.weathercharts.org/ukmomslp.htm - synoptic 500mb pressure charts from UK Met Office
http://www2.wetter3.de - collection of current and historical weather predictions (focused on GFS and ICON models)
https://www.wetterzentrale.de - collection of current and historical weather predictions (various models)
http://wxmaps.org - forecast charts for the whole world
Thunderstorms forecast
Europe: https://www.estofex.org
World:
https://wxcharts.com/ - includes many useful forecasting charts like CAPE, Supercell Composite, Vorticity etc.
https://www.weatheronline.co.uk - contains many useful forecasting charts like Helicity, vertical sheer and convection index
Swell forecast
Primary for surfers but very useful for sailors to predict conditions near the coast.
Excellent forecasts for specific spots (e.g. lakes)
Tropical revolving storm (TRS) forecasts
Tide predictions
Websites:
- UKHO free access to 7-day tidal predictions as a tide table and tidal curve: https://easytide.admiralty.co.uk/
Apps:
- My Tide Times
- Navionics
Ocean currents
Weather forecast models comparison
https://www.weathercharts.org - extensive collection of links to meteorological charts
METAR reports (Meteorological Aerodrome Report)
A METAR weather report is predominantly used by aircraft pilots, and by meteorologists, who use aggregated METAR information to assist in weather forecasting.
Air pressure changes and their meanings
Calculator for the forecast of significant wave height
Aerological surveys
Aerological surveys measurure the atmospheric air characteristics with height. It is a simple xy graph that represents at any particular time and place, the repartition of the air temperature, the dewpoint and the wind according to the altitude. The shape and position of the temperature and dew point curves are important to interpret and forecast nebulosity and thunderstorm risk.
NAVTEX reports
Navtex was developed to provide low cost, simple and automated maritime safety information to the ships (range of about 200 NM). It is part of GMDSS equipments and is required to be fitted onboard yachts of category 1 and 2 (or equivalent arrangement if NAVTEX service is not provided). The below website provide online NAVTEX messages for all METAREAS.
Satellite imagery
Europe imagery with different AVHRR channels: https://www.chmi.cz
World imagery from geostationary satelites: https://www.sat24.com
Historical images from geostationary satelites: https://www.sat24.com/history.aspx
Traffic density
MarineTraffic is an open, community-based project, which provides real-time information on the movements of ships and the current location of ships in harbours and ports.
A part of Marine Traffic functionality is a density map that shows how many vessels sailed in particular region per year. You can observer for example how sparsely visited are higher latitude areas compared to more popular routes. Why this is useful? first, you get an idea on how many ships are expected around and second, weather forecast models generaly work better in areas where there is more commercial traffic as ships send regular SYNOP messages en route that are used as input data for the models.
https://www.marinetraffic.com - click “Density Maps” on the left pane
Clouds classifications and characteristics
Wonderful cloud photo and video gallery
General materials
Met Office articles about weather: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather
Met lectures from University of Arizona: http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/fall14/atmo336/lectures.html
Met lectures from Universtiy of Colorado: https://atoc.colorado.edu/~saraht/atoc1050/Class_News/
Met lectures from Universtiy of California: https://www.ess.uci.edu/~yu/class/ess124/
All about hurricanes
North Atlantic Basin: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/marinersguide.pdf
Forecasting Supercell Thunderstorms: https://www.lakeeriewx.com/Meteo361/ResearchTopicThree/ForecastingSupercells.html
How to read 500mb charts
Intro: http://oceanweatherservices.com/featured_blog_posts/the_use_of_the_500_mb_chart_at_sea
Lecture: http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/fall14/atmo336/lectures/sec1/info500mb.html
User guide to OPC Radiofacsimiles: https://ocean.weather.gov/UsersGuide/UGprint.php
NOOA Mariner’s Guide to the 500mb charts: https://www.vos.noaa.gov/MWL/dec_08/milibar_chart.shtml
- Look out the window at the developing weather and be aware of the environment around, with or without the assistance of outside sources. You are right on the spot, with all the critical information at your fingertips (wind direction and strength, clouds, barometer readings, waves). If you add this to what you see on a synoptic charts, or hear on a weather broadcast, you are in a much better position than the weatherman to make an accurate forecast
- Weather knowledge is critical to safe passage making. Learn how to make use of traditional 500-mb, surface pressure synoptic charts, numerical models and weather information available around you. Do not get caught out!
- Comparing apps that use the same numerical models does not really make sense as you are just going to see the same information in each
- Different apps use different colours on charts so make sure that you understand them well if you use multiple apps. The numerical models available is what makes a difference
- ECMWF and some other models are generaly more reliable than GFS and have better resulution. The SPIRE model is currently ranked 1 for wind speed and direction accuracy using data from offshore weather buoys. It is ranked 2 behind the ECMWF for land based weather stations. Newer models like ECMWF has a very high acquisition cost, and this is why the data was not widely used by many weather websites so far (that has changed in the recent years), and has been traditionally used only by top yacht racing teams and meteorologists
- Long-term forecasts make sense on the open ocean but not necesarily in more closed seas with huge land effect like Mediterranean
- Know your model resolution. Models have typically a resulution/grid of 25km (some have higher and some lower) which means that anything in between the grid points (in the range of 25km) is interpolated. Imagine that you have a wind speed predicted to be 30kn and 20kn between consecutive grid points. In that case the model would show 25kn in between the grid points, but the actual wind there could be much bigger (e.g. 50kn), if there is a front and the wind change immediately. The model might miss that!
- Reliable predicitons usually stop at 40-45kn (it might be guessing beyond that)
- Models are not taking shallow waters into consideration so you have to judge yourself what the waves are going be near the coast, banks, reefs and harbours
- Start checking weather forecast 5 days before the passage to know how stable it is, and if there is any instability (doubt)
- Wave prediction is a product of wind wave and swell
- On the ocean the waves are far more important for the safety than the wind
- Check wind gusts forecast and compare it with regular wind because a big difference may cause shock stress and damage to the rig and sails
- Look at rain and CAPE to understand where the front bands and turbulent weather is
- Add a safety margin to predictions (say 20% or so), especially in areas where the wind could be accelarated (e.g. Canaries acceleration zones, where you could go from 3 to 7 in a matter of seconds)
Fair Winds and Following Seas!
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- Meteorology