What Is The Best Online Interactive Wind And Current Model Website?

[doublewide]

We often use PassageWeather as an on-line tool. I know you asked about on-line utilities. When ON PASSAGE we aren't ON LINE. So our favorite source for real-time weather information as well as customized weather routing and Gulf Stream data, with a sailor's insight is, of course, Chris Parker and Marine Weather Center. To hear Chris while under way you need a good SSB radio. He also has a simultaneous webcast. Chris has made a major investment in tower and transmitter facilities, and we get good copy on him every day in the eastern Caribbean. He always has time to talk to subscribers and gives priority to those who are under way.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by jmiller148

You can change dates in the pulldown on the right. On my tablet if I put it in landscape I can see the days at the bottom of the screen. It does not do this on my phone though.

Thanks.

[svfraidknot]

great information i downloaded both thanks for sharing will really come in handy leaving panama .. what time of the year do these wind directions change radically or do they ??

[billdre]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

One vote for the GRib's and if you don't like that (KISS data) sailflow. It gives me approx wave height and other things all condensed. Their models seem to be accurate for a few days .

I'm strictly a coastal sailor. I find Sailflow very helpful as well. You can check variations between several local area stations and destinations. It allows me to check NOA forecasts at the same time as well as historical data.

[wet slogger]

Try: earth :: a global map of wind, weather, and ocean conditions Great graphics. Wind, current, temp, waves etc. Internet connection needed.
Bob

[rgleason]

Opencpn is open navigation software working on andriod linux windows and mac.
Climatology is a graphical 30 year NOAA data plugin which shows grib summaries by month for (wind) (like pilot charts but in compact grib format). Climatology plugin can be used with Weatherrouting plugin to do routing with long term ocean currents, 30 year wind averages, and a current predictive wind grib file, using the current grib file as first priority, then climatology wind and currents as second.
The climatology and weatherrouting plugins work in windows, linux and mac, but not android yet. If you are looking for noaa 30 pilot grib files this is the answer for you.

[rgleason]

SailgribWR, and predictwind and weather4d apps are very useful android apps provided you have polar performance foles for your boat. They only use current predictive grib files 8 days to 16 days.

[rgleason]

Foles=files

[rgleason]

Voyage Planner does something similar but costs $, whereas opencpn is free, however these are programs available on line.
Why not try opencpn?

[Dolphin35]

If you can borrow or get hold of a library copy (it's pretty expensive to buy your own) The UK Admiralty publication NP136 "Ocean Passages for the World" is the authority on Ocean currents and passage planning. I believe they sell electronic copies too these days.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by svfraidknot

great information i downloaded both thanks for sharing will really come in handy leaving panama .. what time of the year do these wind directions change radically or do they ??

In the SW Carib (Panama, Colombia...) the trades start to fill in around Dec-Jan and start laying down around April-May. This also results in lower sea states, esp in the area of higher seas off Colombia. Reviewing Pilot Charts by month will show you these trends, the red contour lines with a number overlayed show probability of seas > 8', the wind roses show probabilities of wind strength and direction. Text on each chart describes this symbology in detail.

[UNCIVILIZED]

It would definitely be worth posting this question over on Sailing Anarchy's Forums. As this is a topic which racers pay VERY close attention to. And pretty much are continually evaluating data sources for the latest & greatest info.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by billdre

I'm strictly a coastal sailor. I find Sailflow very helpful as well. You can check variations between several local area stations and destinations. It allows me to check NOA forecasts at the same time as well as historical data.

Something to be aware of when using NOAA's GFS model output for near coastal wind direction and speed, is that GFS does not do very well close to land mases. How much it will be off depends on the the land effect in the area. This is one reason that sailors often claim the NOAA forecast is wrong, when in fact they are just unaware of limitations of the model. Some GRIB viewers plot a boundary area off land masses, inside of which GFS is not very accurate. If you know the local land effects well, then you can apply your own corrections.

Some wind data presentation services, like Wind Guru, allow you to apply your own local correction factors.

Keep in mind too, that NONE of these presentation services, like Wind Guru; Passage Weather; various GRIB viewers; etc, generate their own base forecast data. Developing and running forecast models costs millions...way more of a capital investment than these small businesses could afford. So, they all rely on data generated by the major models and present it in a more accessible way. Some, like Wind Guru may apply their own tweaks to the data, but most dont even do that. That said, I really like Wind Gurus's graphic presentation...packs a whole lot of info into a very concise format.

Well offshore GFS is quite good for wind direction, but tends to signficantly under estimate higher wind speeds. For a dramatic example of this, look at GFS wind speed forecast around a hurricane.

There are newer meso-scale models being developed which do a better job of near coastal or overland, but most of these are focussed on very specific areas. One example is the US Navy's COAMPS model, it is typically more accurate near coastal than GFS, but is still under development.

For sea state, NOAA's WW3 is one of the better models.

A complicating factor for this area (Panama-Colombia) is that the weather systems down in the angle formed by the two countries are very complex and hard to predict. This is one reason many people have rough crossings here because its a challenge to reliably call a good weather window. Also why some of the captains who regularly run backpacker transport between Panama and Colombia prefer big heavy displacment steel boats so they can just plow thru whatever they encounter. The Colombian sport fishing boats typically wait to make their runs to Panama in the summer months when winds and seas are calmer.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Something to be aware of when using NOAA's GFS model output for near coastal wind direction and speed, is that GFS does not do very well close to land mases. How much it will be off depends on the the land effect in the area. This is one reason that sailors often claim the NOAA forecast is wrong, when in fact they are just unaware of limitations of the model. Some GRIB viewers plot a boundary area off land masses, inside of which GFS is not very accurate. If you know the local land effects well, then you can apply your own corrections.

Some wind data presentation services, like Wind Guru, allow you to apply your own local correction factors.

Keep in mind too, that NONE of these presentation services, like Wind Guru; Passage Weather; various GRIB viewers; etc, generate their own base forecast data. Developing and running forecast models costs millions...way more of a capital investment than these small businesses could afford. So, they all rely on data generated by the major models and present it in a more accessible way. Some, like Wind Guru may apply their own tweaks to the data, but most dont even do that. That said, I really like Wind Gurus's graphic presentation...packs a whole lot of info into a very concise format.

This is a very important point.

I found that Wind.ty did a great job showing the path of Hurricane erika three/four days out but it's just visualization software not a forecasting model. Whatever they use for the caribbean basin seems to work very well.

On the other hand, I could not identify a match between the turn that Wind.ty predicted and any other models at the time, so maybe they do tweak something.

[s/v Beth]

Belize makes some very good points, in fact every time we were in bad weather that we did not know was coming it was because of a land mass close by. We had a gale hit us because of Katabolic winds off of Olympus at O300. Not forecast, but real. Coming from the ESE when the prevailing were from the NW. One more reason not to like the land-sea interface.