Wintering in the Med

[Polux]

Originally Posted by jckb

Hi Polux, I know what you mean about summer variablity. Winter, this is less of an issue. It would be interesting to hear your opinion on a briefing . . .

The briefing below was created from 35 years of observations made when running commercial sailing operations in the Mediterranean, including many winter deliveries. It was honed and perfected from feedback by the many staff who set up charter operations in Greece in the late 1970's onwards. Many of them now run their own yacht support operations around the Ionian, the Saronic, and SW Turkey:
The key point is that settled weather can reliably be predicted, also the probable onset of unsettled weather (especially in winter, when diurnal heating is less of an issue). The lazy man's predictor is to watch the the cloud cover animation for Europe on the Poseidon web site (select parameter "cloudiness", and "animation" at the bottom of the right hand box)
A more careful person will look for differences between the various available forecast sources - differences are a good predictor of unsettled weather, when alll bets are off!

The specific winter case is also covered on that web page.

Of course, summer and winter, the unexpected can always arise in some areas. Especially in the Golfe de Lions, or through the Gibraltar straits, when events outside the Mediterrean drive the winds.

JimB

Hi Jim,

Being sailing on the med on the last 10 years with about 20 000 nm done there and I know it reasonably well. The last paragraph of your post says it all except that I don't agree that the areas where you have unpredictable winds are only the ones you mention. Sure there are, specially on the West Mediterranean, Ionian, Saronic Gulf and on the Eastern, near Turkey plenty of areas where settled weather is very predictable, but others, on the Adriatic, Tyrrenean and Aegean are very difficult to predict and subject to sudden variations, even with clear skies.

The several forecasts you mention even if given the same information on a macro scale, if looked at a local scale give many times contradicting and opposed information. This summer comparing Poseidon with the theoretically more detailed Marine Greek weather report (Aegean and Dodecanese), on a local basis sometimes Poseidon gave a F2/3 and the Government site F5/6. Sometimes one was right and the other wrong, but it changed and sometimes both were wrong.

It is a local joke among Italian sailors that their weather service never get it right. That is surely an exaggeration but their service is pretty inaccurate, having to do with a narrow country with sea on both sides and high mountains on the middle. Mountains is a common characterize on most Eastern med and they are responsible for the difficulty in predicting weather, not on a macro scale but at a localized scale. The difference between summer and winter is that in those places you can get a localized F7/8 not predicted and on the winter that can reach 9/10. Not a problem for me a not predicted F7/8 but I would not like to be caught on a F9/10 on the short steep med seas.

By the way, South of Crete this summer I was caught by a not predicted F9/10. They predicted 6/7 and even less away from the shore and that's what I have done, sailing offshore well South of Crete. Well, they changed the prediction given a F10, but that was no prediction because when they changed it it was already happening

Lorenzo, tell us what you have decided. Surely you are already at sea. Tell us how is the weather you are having.

[jckb]

Hi Polux,

In summer, I agree about the unpredictablity of winds near large, high land masses. Diurnal heating causes big variations from the mean, and downwind of big lumps of land, if overall winds are above F4, there may be calm, or F6.

In winter, with much less diurnal heating, there is much less deviation from forecasts - in settled weather.

In summer northerlies I'm not at all surprised that south of Crete you met some extreme deviations from forecast. Crete is a long, high lump of land with a steep lee side! A bit like bora land in N Adriatic . . .

[atoll]

Originally Posted by jckb

Hi Polux,

In summer, I agree about the unpredictablity of winds near large, high land masses. Diurnal heating causes big variations from the mean, and downwind of big lumps of land, if overall winds are above F4, there may be calm, or F6.

In winter, with much less diurnal heating, there is much less deviation from forecasts - in settled weather.

In summer northerlies I'm not at all surprised that south of Crete you met some extreme deviations from forecast. Crete is a long, high lump of land with a steep lee side! A bit like bora land in N Adriatic . . .

force 9 is pretty common at either end of crete and at the bottom end of the peloponese/kithara,but once you are 25 miles further out you generally get the true wind which is more like a force 5.........funny how people motor close inshore under crete then get hammered at either end