iangrant
New member
Jim,
That is exactly why we went sailing last weekend and others didn't!
Ian
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That is exactly why we went sailing last weekend and others didn't!
Ian
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Anyone here from the Met Office
- Thread starter iangrant
- Start date
simonjk
Well-known member
Re: Very Interesting Thread
Hi Martin,
I hope nobody minds, but I was alerted to this thread by Brendan, one of the people who subscribe to my free weekend forecast service.
I am running a training course on 22/23 March 2003 at Cowes, entiltled Weather for Sailing. The course covers all aspects of weather indepth, and covers the whole of the RYA syllabuses (or should that be syllabi?)
There are some more details at http://www.wcsmarine.com and click on the training courses.
For those who want to get a weekend weather forecast for the UK, emailed to them each Thursday, just send an email to wcsmarine-subscribe@topica.com
(your email address remains with me and is not given to anyone else).
Again, please excuse the commercial nature of this email, but it seemed okay as the question had been asked.
I have replied elsewhere to the weekend forecast question.
Cheers,
Simon
Simon Keeling
Managing Director
Weather Consultancy Services Ltd
www.weatherweb.net & www.wcsmarine.com
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Hi Martin,
I hope nobody minds, but I was alerted to this thread by Brendan, one of the people who subscribe to my free weekend forecast service.
I am running a training course on 22/23 March 2003 at Cowes, entiltled Weather for Sailing. The course covers all aspects of weather indepth, and covers the whole of the RYA syllabuses (or should that be syllabi?)
There are some more details at http://www.wcsmarine.com and click on the training courses.
For those who want to get a weekend weather forecast for the UK, emailed to them each Thursday, just send an email to wcsmarine-subscribe@topica.com
(your email address remains with me and is not given to anyone else).
Again, please excuse the commercial nature of this email, but it seemed okay as the question had been asked.
I have replied elsewhere to the weekend forecast question.
Cheers,
Simon
Simon Keeling
Managing Director
Weather Consultancy Services Ltd
www.weatherweb.net & www.wcsmarine.com
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simonjk
Well-known member
Hi Ian,
I run Weather Consultancy Services, a private weather forecasting company, so I am not in the habit of sticking up for the Met Office.
However, seems no-one from there is going to reply to this thread, although they will probably lurk and criticise the response below.
I am always interested in the reports given back by sailors, as when the forecast goes wrong, I always encourage my forecasters to do a back analysis and try to discover what happened.
Whilst I haven't done a fule analysis of the situation you found yourself, I have taken a brief look at conditons to try and answer your questions.
It seems that on Sunday a shallow low was tracking up the English Channel. The overall flow was a SE'ly, but obviously as the low came through this shifted dramatically. The low moved to the south of Southampton in the morning, with a ridge building behind it. This took the flow to the NW, where it stuck for most of the day, before becoming W'ly in the evening.
Why this should have been so I don't know. When did you take the forecast you qouted? The only thing I can guess at is that the model didn't pick up the shallow low moving through the Channel. Why this should be I don't know.
The main model we use here is the US GFS. I have taken a look at the 00 GMT run of this model from Saturday, and we were predicting even then that the wind early on Sunday morning would be WNW F2-F3, becoming NW F4 in the afternoon. (i.e. this weas based on data 36 hrs in advance).
So, I hope this helps you out, and gives a little bit of an explanation for you.
If this happens again, please make a note of the forecast, email it to me, and I'll do some investigating for you. Always fascinating to see situations like this (God I am borning aren't I?)
Best wishes,
Simon
Simon Keeling
Managing Director
Weather Consultancy Services
www.weatherweb.net & www.wcsmarine.com
<hr width=100% size=1>
I run Weather Consultancy Services, a private weather forecasting company, so I am not in the habit of sticking up for the Met Office.
However, seems no-one from there is going to reply to this thread, although they will probably lurk and criticise the response below.
I am always interested in the reports given back by sailors, as when the forecast goes wrong, I always encourage my forecasters to do a back analysis and try to discover what happened.
Whilst I haven't done a fule analysis of the situation you found yourself, I have taken a brief look at conditons to try and answer your questions.
It seems that on Sunday a shallow low was tracking up the English Channel. The overall flow was a SE'ly, but obviously as the low came through this shifted dramatically. The low moved to the south of Southampton in the morning, with a ridge building behind it. This took the flow to the NW, where it stuck for most of the day, before becoming W'ly in the evening.
Why this should have been so I don't know. When did you take the forecast you qouted? The only thing I can guess at is that the model didn't pick up the shallow low moving through the Channel. Why this should be I don't know.
The main model we use here is the US GFS. I have taken a look at the 00 GMT run of this model from Saturday, and we were predicting even then that the wind early on Sunday morning would be WNW F2-F3, becoming NW F4 in the afternoon. (i.e. this weas based on data 36 hrs in advance).
So, I hope this helps you out, and gives a little bit of an explanation for you.
If this happens again, please make a note of the forecast, email it to me, and I'll do some investigating for you. Always fascinating to see situations like this (God I am borning aren't I?)
Best wishes,
Simon
Simon Keeling
Managing Director
Weather Consultancy Services
www.weatherweb.net & www.wcsmarine.com
<hr width=100% size=1>
peterb
New member
Re: Very Interesting Thread
The Met Office do an extremely good book (published by HMSO) called "Meteorology for Mariners". It is intended for big-ship sailors and can be fairly heavy going in places, but it gives the best coverage of marine weather that I've seen anywhere.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by peterb on 06/03/2003 19:54 (server time).</FONT></P>
The Met Office do an extremely good book (published by HMSO) called "Meteorology for Mariners". It is intended for big-ship sailors and can be fairly heavy going in places, but it gives the best coverage of marine weather that I've seen anywhere.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by peterb on 06/03/2003 19:54 (server time).</FONT></P>
montezuma
New member
No they won't, the BBC doesn't advertise.
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Cornishman
New member
Very interesting, I'm sure, but it doesn't explain the SW F2-3 in Plymouth Sound with gorgeous warm sunshine all day on Sunday. Or does it? Were we on the trailing edge of the ridge do you suppose?
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simonjk
Well-known member
Yes, looks like the ridge was passing through, and so the wind in Plymouth Sound with have backed from W to SW.
The speed decreases as the axis of the ridge passes, and you do very often get that decrease behind the axis too as the ridge moves through (if that makes sense?).
Hope that helps?
Simon
<hr width=100% size=1>Weather Consultancy Services Ltd
www.weatherweb.net & www.wcsmarine.com
The speed decreases as the axis of the ridge passes, and you do very often get that decrease behind the axis too as the ridge moves through (if that makes sense?).
Hope that helps?
Simon
<hr width=100% size=1>Weather Consultancy Services Ltd
www.weatherweb.net & www.wcsmarine.com
pandroid
Active member
Re: Very Interesting Thread
Some weather courses are available. Alan Watts runs a very good one every year at the Nottage in Colchester and Frank Singleton will run one for clubs on demand if you ask him nicely (he's doing one for the Hallberg-Rassy Association this year). Both are retired professional forecasters. I'm sure there are other sources.
I'm not a weather professional but I've done some of the courses and I've seen the Met Office at work, and I find the more you learn about it, the more you realise that the Met Office generally does a very good job. The main thing that lets it down, compared to, say, the US, is that it is not free to give its info away like the US authority, as the government dictates that it makes a profit...
Couple of other points:
a) The Weather Channel was apparently launched in Europe, but folded due to lack of revenue
b) The automatic weather forecasts, broadcast continuously in the US and Canada, are universally pasted as useless.
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Some weather courses are available. Alan Watts runs a very good one every year at the Nottage in Colchester and Frank Singleton will run one for clubs on demand if you ask him nicely (he's doing one for the Hallberg-Rassy Association this year). Both are retired professional forecasters. I'm sure there are other sources.
I'm not a weather professional but I've done some of the courses and I've seen the Met Office at work, and I find the more you learn about it, the more you realise that the Met Office generally does a very good job. The main thing that lets it down, compared to, say, the US, is that it is not free to give its info away like the US authority, as the government dictates that it makes a profit...
Couple of other points:
a) The Weather Channel was apparently launched in Europe, but folded due to lack of revenue
b) The automatic weather forecasts, broadcast continuously in the US and Canada, are universally pasted as useless.
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