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

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by 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.

We get some wicked local wind effects here in Panama too that are not predcited by any models. You could probably infer when there is a higher probability of occurrence with some obseration and research, but certainly nothing that predicts them currently.

Got caught in about a 40 knot gap wind on a kayaking trip last year here in Panama. It was VERY localized, blowing offshore out of the one bay we needed to get back into. The two adjacent bays, literally within a few hundred meters of the first, were calm. It blew like this all afternoon. We had to land in another bay and hike back to our vehicles.

Closer to the OPs plans, there are localized high wind events in the San Blas too.

[EllesBelles]

We use many online sites and apps (passageweather.com, weather 4D Pro, and predictwind -the pro version which allows departure and weather planning - stand out, and we list more in detail in the resources on our blog -address below) for weather and passage planning looking forward at the upcoming true weather for the next week or twofold course no weather prediction is reliable past three days so we get continual updates while on passage via fax on SSB or satellite. We're buying the iridium go now to give us live predictwind updates.
But if you're wanting historical weather patterns, have you looked at Jimmy Cornell's book, World Cruising Routes. About $29 on Amazon World Cruising Routes: Sixth Edition (World Cruising Routes: Featuring Nearly 1000 Sailing Routes in All Oceans of the World): Jimmy Cornell: 9780071592895: Amazon.com: Books and worth every penny