Faith in Weather Forecast?

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Then what about the 55 knot blasts here in the Med with relatively flat seas? Or the choppy, steep seas we get here in the Med with maybe 30 knot winds. It looks nothing like the Beaufort scale and descriptions.

Local factors such as insufficient fetch in which to build a sea or wind against tide or katabatic winds or the masking of local land forms etc would account for these. The value of the Beaufort Scale is that once learned it ties together wind strength and sea state in our perception of seagoing conditions.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Local factors such as insufficient fetch in which to build a sea or wind against tide or katabatic winds or the masking of local land forms etc would account for these. The value of the Beaufort Scale is that once learned it ties together wind strength and sea state in our perception of seagoing conditions.

Exactly. The Beaufort scale is for open ocean conditions, not small bodies of water like the Med or Baltic. The sea states shown are what you see only when they are fully developed over a fair amount of time and a fair amount of fetch. The sea never looks like that near land (or anywhere in Baltic or Med). The value of the Beaufort scale is for you to know what to expect after maximum energy transfer to the water occurs, in a given range of wind speed.


http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pd...heet_No._6.pdf

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Local factors such as insufficient fetch in which to build a sea or wind against tide or katabatic winds or the masking of local land forms etc would account for these. The value of the Beaufort Scale is that once learned it ties together wind strength and sea state in our perception of seagoing conditions.

Raymond,

I don't see how the Beauford Scale can be of any value to us here in the Med. I can show you a video of what 40-49 knots sustained looks like here in the Med, and it's nothing like the Beauford Scale or the pictures submitted by Dockhead.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Sulaire

Ken,

Try predictwind, they show the "jets" that come off the foot of italy very clearly, we have found pw useful as it takes into account land masses, you need to subscribe to get the best out of it, but it is worth it. Throw in a bit of windguru and turkish university forecast gribs and you will have 3 or 4 models to look at, but pw is our go to and has been for many years.

We switched to the Predictwind app two weeks ago and subscribe to the basic package, and have found it to be far more accurate than Weather4Dpro, Pocketgribs and buoyweather.

So far it's been spot on, but I usually add 5 knots just to be safe just like when using the other apps. I'll be an annual subscriber and like how it gives swell, rainfall, cloud cover and weather map all in one service.

Here's a forecast for this morning, we are actually getting 10 knots gusting to 15 occasionally to 20 knots. Certainly nothing like the 5 knots predicted by the other apps.

Thanks for the recommendation Charlie!

Ken

[Kenomac]

Here's the Pocketgrib forecast for the same time period.

[El Pinguino]

Still just a grib... just saying..

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Still just a grib... just saying..

So.... You have a better idea while anchored in a foreign country where you don't speak or understand the language.

Let's hear it..... "Just saying."

[El Pinguino]

NOAA wx sats.......

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

NOAA wx sats.......

That doesn't work for places like small bays and anchorages in places like Montenegro and Croatia. NOAA doesn't issue forecasts that specific. We don't have access to NOAA weather radar images here in the Med in isolated places. I have the NOAA app but there's no images available for this area.

Having just wrote the above.... I take that back. Looks like I'm now able tomaccess NOAA radar images on my Ipad.

Thanks for making the comment and alerting me to the information.

[Zephyrcat229]

just a matter of getting a handle on the amount of deviation in any given area...
that said the amount of deviation can be astounding depending on the environment you're in..

most of those apps just regurgitate info that's free if'n you know where to look on the govt sites as El Pinguino states..

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

NOAA wx sats.......

One more usefull tool.

Thanks.

[poiu]

Don't you use synoptic charts? The grib based forecasts have no human input and don't show all the detail, often missing isobars and fronts. This is the highest quality data and when used with gribs as well as Meteosat images gives a quick and complete understanding of what is going on. UK Met Office, DWS or Meteofrance will do good charts.

Surface pressure charts - Met Office

Right now for example there is a high building in your area, so in day or two fickle local winds, ana/katabatic wind will dominate, if there is any weather at all. Gribs don't show that so they get unfairly blamed for being wrong (and the weather reporters who use them).

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by poiu

Don't you use synoptic charts? The grib based forecasts have no human input and don't show all the detail, often missing isobars and fronts. This is the highest quality data and when used with gribs as well as Meteosat images gives a quick and complete understanding of what is going on. UK Met Office, DWS or Meteofrance will do good charts.

Surface pressure charts - Met Office

Right now for example there is a high building in your area, so in day or two fickle local winds, ana/katabatic wind will dominate, if there is any weather at all. Gribs don't show that so they get unfairly blamed for being wrong (and the weather reporters who use them).

Yes, Predictwind offers a complete array of charts, swell, rain, pressure, temp, sea temp, wind etc. The NOAA radar is what has been letting us down this past week, something is wrong with the app MyRadar. Like I wrote earlier, Predictwind basic subscription has been spot on over the past two weeks.