Anyone use Weather HQ website?

[alahol2]

If the algorithms were for a specific area or location there would be something in what you say. That is not the case as far as I know. ...They are often good on the general pattern but rarely on detail.

I'm a big fan of the Windfinder 'superforecast'. It will very often forecast the sea breeze effect for the Solent area eg forecasting a SW in the afternoon as opposed to the general SE that other forecasts are showing. They seem to be adding local effects to the overall forecast, often making it closer to the reality. I don't know if that is the case for all areas or just the case for the Solent.

 

[ProDave]

I'm a big fan of the Windfinder 'superforecast'. It will very often forecast the sea breeze effect for the Solent area eg forecasting a SW in the afternoon as opposed to the general SE that other forecasts are showing. They seem to be adding local effects to the overall forecast, often making it closer to the reality. I don't know if that is the case for all areas or just the case for the Solent.

We get similar local effects in the Moray Firth. I will give the superforecast a go and see if it matches reality any better than others.

 

[SimonFa]

is this what your looking for: https://weatherfile.com/ ?

Make sure you check the units, the default wind is m/s.

 

[franksingleton]

I'm a big fan of the Windfinder 'superforecast'. It will very often forecast the sea breeze effect for the Solent area eg forecasting a SW in the afternoon as opposed to the general SE that other forecasts are showing. They seem to be adding local effects to the overall forecast, often making it closer to the reality. I don't know if that is the case for all areas or just the case for the Solent.

I realise that I will be regarded as an old cynic but I do have to wonder just how Windfinder can model the Solent sea breeze. The Solent is about 5 km across. To be able to represent weather on that scale requires a model grid length of less than 2km. Windfinder uses a 7km grid for Europe. When the Met Office was developing its fine scale model - about 1.5 km grid, they were delighted that they could now model the Solent. A 7 km grid simply cannot define the distribution of land and sea on that scale.

However, even if a fine scale model can predict the Solent sea breeze, there is no certainty that it will. Much depends on cloud cover and the large scale pattern. Although topographically generated weather is predictable in principle for a day or more ahead, the same is not true for small weather detail generally. My usual example is a large shower or thunderstorm, some 10-30km in size. These have lifetimes of a few hours. By the time you see a detailed forecast it can be several hours from initial data time - 3 for ICON-EU. In effect, detail on such scales is not usefully predictable for our sailing purposes.

This year I have been looking at Windycom. This lets you compare the GFS, ECMWF, ICON-RU and the French detailed model (1.3km grid) AROME. I have not done a rigorous statistical analysis but my impression is that, even for hours ahead, AROME does no better than the other models.