What is it with the weather forecasters these days?

[Jackwabbit]

This is the second week running we have cancelled going diving on the south coast due to the forecasts.
Last Saturday they said Sunday was going to be force 4 to 5 & as high as force 6 early on all southwesterly, what happened? 4-6mph all day from the northwest & flat calm seas all day.
And this week again they forecasted southerly winds as high as force 7 at times, just had a look at the webcams at Brighton ARRGGHHHHHHH its flat calm again!
And wind speed at Shoreham has peaked at 7mph this morning.

WHY do they over estimate the wind strengths since they got caught out by the gales?
I have noticed over the last couple of years the inshore shipping forecast has been the worst for over estimating the wind speeds.

My prediction from the charts I saw yesterday was that it would be south westerly winds, probably going as high as force 4 maybe 5 hitting Brighton some time during the afternoon. I think in future I’ll go by my own armature forecasting instead of listening to the professionals.

[TQBoater]

I've given up trusting what they say on the forcasts.

We are lucky be able to look at the webcam and then decide if we go out, just live 10 min from the slipway

[Powerboat]

Try www.theyr.net .

We have been using it for years and find it very accurate hour by hour on wind speed and direction down to a 10 mile by 10 mile area.

It takes a little bit of setting up to drill down and set up a page for your area. But set it up once, save in your favourites file and you have an instant dynamic forecasting tool which is quite accurate from D- 72 hours.

And it's free !!

[The Bryster]

Falmouth at the moment..........
SW 20-30kts
Vis about 1/2 mile

[steedthrust]

Try using windguru used it last year, when I go out sailing usually quite reliable.

[Jackwabbit]

Thanks for the info guys;
I’ll try looking at these sites during the week to see how accurate they are.
The wind speed at Shoreham has hit the giddy heights of 13mph so far, that’s only a force 4 in my books hardly the 6 or 7 they predicted. If only it wasn’t a 2 ½ hour drive with the boat, hope you all had fun on the water while I was sitting here looking at the weather. Shoreham weather

[Brambles]

Talking about weather, I think we discovered a basic design fault with Ribs on Friday. We went for a quick blat out past Old Harry in perfect conditions, turned back and then the mother of all hail storms hit us. Within about 5 minutes the deck was full of ice & slush, which doesn't drain away.

Must remember to take a shovel next time we try to enjoy some Spring boating

Cheers

Ian

[jwalker]

Originally Posted by Powerboat

Try www.theyr.net .

We have been using it for years and find it very accurate hour by hour on wind speed and direction down to a 10 mile by 10 mile area.

Powerboat, they must be good at your bit of the country. The charts are impressive as are the facilities but theyr ( ) as bad as the rest. At the moment, 19.00hrs, they have the whole area as a force 4 and just a bit of light cloud. It's been grey and stormy looking all day and at most a force 2 but mainly a 1 to calm.

Forcasters can't do it. Too much reliance on computer models, I don't doubt.

[Alex Brown]

Metoffice have been pretty accurate for us today - it started raining this morning at about 0800hrs, a brief spell of brightness just after lunch for say 30mins, but the rest of the time it's not stopped raining... at this time we've had 20.8mm of rain so far....
As for the wind, we knew it was going to be pretty blowy earlier on - mid afternoon saw winds upto 37knots from the SE.

Unfortunately cos we're on the SW tip of Wales, it's often hard for the met folk to get it spot on - they could say that we're going to get a glorious day of sunshine, but in actual fact it will probably rain.
They are mostly correct on their forecasts for the inshore waters locally, but I find a checking the weather charts daily to see what's happening gives a better feel for things, and idea of roughly what weather to expect.

-Alex

added:> anyone interested in the weather right now here in pembs can goto either www.milfordweather.org.uk or www.pembrokeweather.org.uk - interesting to see the local weather effects and differences on these stations that are only 6 miles apart from each other.

[Powerboat]

Must be over here !

www.theyr.net was bang on as usual for Dublin, Lough Ree in the Midlands and Galway Bay all weekend. We had crews in all 3 locations and the debriefs confirmed the expected and experienced weather in all 3 locations.

We now have an inland lakes forecast from the Irish Met Office for the large Shannon Lakes. We find that their forecasts are always quite pessimistic!!

I tried one of the other sites mentioned ( windguru ) and found that the direction quoted at 1500 today was out by 180 degrees!!!!!!

I'll have a more careful look at it during the week !

I did see some registered users on the windguru site who I recognised as fellow marine professionals here in Ireland. I'll chat to them during the week and see what they think.

As I said, We have found theyr to be uncannily accurate for Irish waters (Dublin Bay, Sligo Bay, Galway Bay, Shannon Estruary and the Shannon Lakes) over weekly and daily use in recent years !!

As always, a given forecast is just one set of information inputs into a decision process. The decision rests ultimately with the Skipper!

Best wishes,

Stuart

Originally Posted by jwalker

Powerboat, they must be good at your bit of the country. The charts are impressive as are the facilities but theyr ( ) as bad as the rest. At the moment, 19.00hrs, they have the whole area as a force 4 and just a bit of light cloud. It's been grey and stormy looking all day and at most a force 2 but mainly a 1 to calm.

Forcasters can't do it. Too much reliance on computer models, I don't doubt.

[Richard B]

Originally Posted by jwalker

Forcasters can't do it. Too much reliance on computer models, I don't doubt.

Yes and no, I reckon. They seem to get a lot of data from The European Centre for Medium range Weather Forecasting, ECMWF who use computer modelling, and then put their own spin on it. It's at this point that it all seems to go wrong! I've found that looking directly at ECMWF often gives a fairly accurate prediction if you use your own interpretation of the charts that they produce.

Their forecast for this weekend was for very light winds.

And guys, I really need to tell you off now, as Mike Garside suggested this site about two years ago and I've been singing its praises ever since.

Here's their chart for Saturday:

[Jackwabbit]

Here are some of the sites I watch & use to make my decision on whether to go diving or not.

During the week leading up to the weekend.

Accuweather.com

European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts

Then as we get closer to the weekend.

Met office Europe surface pressure charts

Then the day before.

Met Office Inshore forecast
Along with all the south-coast web cames we have listed on our own club site
SSAC webcams
As well as the inshore forecast on the TV’s Telletext.

Over the last couple of weeks everything was going well & from all the data I had seen leading up to the weekends, then I think my big mistake was to look at the inshore forecasts the day before.
Oh well this week I’ll just keep looking up to Friday & make my own decision from that & only look at the web cams on Saturday.

[Roy Smith]

Last August my self and two other ribs wanted to picnic at Lulworth cove the forcast said winds 2/3 dry but with cloud as we crossed Christchurch bay from Lymington we had 3/4 ft swell that was starting to break and the winds had realy got up. Then we heard the costguatd Weather forcast on channel 23 saying Wind force 3 sea state slight it got so bad we abandoned the trip and went into Poole, ? i guess you take a chance with the weather when ever you go out.