Prevailing Winds

[rwells36]

Can anyone refer me to any publication which contains world-wide prevailing wind flow? Ocean currents (worldwide) would be a plus too

[deblen]

https://earth.nullschool.net/#curren...4.48,35.65,929

[rwells36]

Originally Posted by deblen

https://earth.nullschool.net/#curren...4.48,35.65,929

Very interesting!! Thank you

[grantmc]

The earth.nullschool.net is an awesome tool. But it’s predominantly in the moment. Sure there are some cool extractions and replays available too, but I wonder if what the OP is asking for would be better served by weather roses available in Pilots. Weather roses are the old style predictions of wind manufactured for each month. Based on many many years of data that in the old days was collected and reported by ships.

Here’s a link to the Blue Seas site that produces weather pilots for all the major oceans, and you’ll see there’s a separate pilot for each month. So let’s say you’re planning a trip between California and Australia over say a 9 month period you could work out a plan of when to make the various passages based on the expected weather for each area. Obviously it’s a prediction, but I don’t see how earth.nullschool.net allows me to do that.

As an example I've uploaded a diagram displaying the weather prediction rose for April around New Zealand. The information provided backing up the rose offers an extensive review of weather for the month and place in question, including surface temperature and air pressure, wave heights, possibility of cyclones.

Just as an aside the use of weather roses is something you should learn on any basic navigation course.

[StuM]

Try here:

Climatology of Global Ocean Winds - COGOW

It needs Flash player for the location selector on the index page.

If you don't want to use flash to select your start location, go direct to here and use the little navigation box to move around.
Climatology of Global Ocean Winds (QuikSCAT)
(I've linked to Jan on the East Coast of the US.)


Hold you mouse over any point in the map to see a Windrose for the selected fortnight and location.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by rwells36

Can anyone refer me to any publication which contains world-wide prevailing wind flow? Ocean currents (worldwide) would be a plus too

Traditionally this info is provided by Pilot Charts. You can download US Gov produced Pilot Charts here:

https://msi.nga.mil/NGAPortal/MSI.po...2&pubCode=0003

Digital chart (BSB) versions are available on the OpenCPN web site:

https://opencpn.org/OpenCPN/info/pilotcharts.html

OpenCPN has a good climatology plug in.

Windy is a cool visualization tool, but does not currently provide historic data access. It will display wind and current as well as many other dat sets.

[grahamb]

The publication....." OCEAN PASSAGES FOR THE WORLD " published by .....The Hydrogropher of The Navy ......UK......contains every ocean......suggested sailing routes between ports.....distances......and more. It is number 136 in their series of Pilots. Absolutely informative.

[ilenart]

Jimmy Cornell's "World Cruising Routes" has a chapter on winds and currents of the world. Plus the 1,000 routes include details of prevailing winds.

Ilenart

[rwells36]

Thanks for the tip!