best wind predictor sites

[C08]

I have a pretty negative view of the Met Office inshore forecasts in that they try to cover too large an area and consequently often fail targetted than the an impossible task. I normally use xc weather which I find better targeted than Met Office generalizations and sometimes WindGuru. Are there any better (free) sites now out there?

 

[KAL]

I find Passageweather excellent.

 

[superheat6k]

Windfinder is free and I find very good.

 

[PabloPicasso]

I have a pretty negative view of the Met Office inshore forecasts in that they try to cover too large an area and consequently often fail targetted than the an impossible task. I normally use xc weather which I find better targeted than Met Office generalizations and sometimes WindGuru. Are there any better (free) sites now out th


try http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/marine

yeah I use windguru to

 

[alahol2]

Windfinder (particularly the super forecast) is the one I find consistently most accurate round the Solent. The longer range forecast seems to use the same basis as Windguru but without the delay in posting.

 

[TQA]

Both Windguru and Passagemaker do a good job for me.

 

[GHA]

Don't all the free ones use the same GFS data anyway? So more a preference in presentation than accuracy.

 

[KellysEye]

We use UGRIB and find it more accurate than the Met Office www.grib.us - you need to sign up but it's free.

 

[Alan ashore]

www.predictwind.com does it for me. Not free, but IMHO excellent. You need to read the info on their site to understand their value add.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Don't all the free ones use the same GFS data anyway? So more a preference in presentation than accuracy.

Just so. In fact, the Met Office weather DATA are better than GFS; they do a finer resolution model for the UK. However, presentation (as suggested by the OP) tends to fail a bit.

Check FrankSingleton's posts - he runs a very good web-site that gives a lot of valuable information. Also, of course, SimonJK is a good resource as well.

 

[Doineann]

Always strikes me that, within limits, the real thing we want to know about is sea state rather than wind, can’t say I have found one I trust yet.

 

[alahol2]

Just so. In fact, the Met Office weather DATA are better than GFS; they do a finer resolution model for the UK. However, presentation (as suggested by the OP) tends to fail a bit.

Check FrankSingleton's posts - he runs a very good web-site that gives a lot of valuable information. Also, of course, SimonJK is a good resource as well.

The windfinder super forecast claims to use a smaller grid (not that I really understand the details). Is this smaller grid not available to other forecasters? Is it finer than the Met Office grid?

 

[michael_w]

Of the GFS based sites I've found Magic Seaweed often shows small changes missed by Passage Weather and Wind Guru.

 

[maxcampbell]

Of the GFS based sites I've found Magic Seaweed often shows small changes missed by Passage Weather and Wind Guru.

+1 - first recommended to me by brightlingsea HM

 

[Playtime]

No-one has mentioned zygrib. This has a choice of data models and, using the right click Meteotable facility a detailed (every 3 hours) 7 day forecast can be presented for any chosen point on the map, including cloud cover, precipitation and dew point, as well as average wind/gust strength, temperature etc. It also includes waves, swell etc. selectable as required.

Presentation is excellent with clear colour coding of the important data.

 

[Kurrawong_Kid]

For inshore I usually have a look at the local met office forecast for places en route. eg Harwich, Clacton, Burnham, Margate for a Thames Estuary Crossing as well as Windguru, Xc etc. Have found the timings, wind direction and gust information pretty good. With interpolation of all you get a pretty good idea of what may come, but agree the Met Office Inshore Forecast areas are too big to be of much use.

 

[KREW2]

I find Passageweather excellent.

Yes, very good http://passageweather.com/

 

[Bosun Higgs]

all depends on how far offshore you are going. if you are within maybe 5 miles or so of land then many of the windfinder type forecasts seem better than the met office. but when you do go 10 miles or so offshore I find the met office quite good and certainly better than some of the frrebies most of which are land forecasts. For example, does windfinder give a forecast for mid channel?

I also use http://www.myweather2.com/Marine/Coastal-Areas/United-Kingdom/Falmouth-Sheltered.aspx?sday=0&eday=7 as it is a specifically sailing forecast. Tends to be a bit pessimistic

 

[franksingleton]

Boring, I know, because I have said it so often, BUT most of these sites are the same information. They are almost always the GFS,

My personal choice is to use eithe zgGrib or Saildocs. zyGrib has just about the widest choice of options. SAildocs is great because I can set it up as a routine daily email that is (nearly) always there. I view it with the zyGrib viewer. If I want an update, say using midday data,it is easy to do using zyGrib.

The important issue is how to use them. We do two things. We make great use of GRIBs for planning over the next week. Secondly, we use them together with whichever coastal GMDS forecast we are receiving.

 

[franksingleton]

Re #12.

A number of organisations run numerical weather prediction models with smaller grid lengths. See http://weather.mailasail.com/Franks-Weather/Grid-Length-Resolution and other pages of my site.

What these people do not tell you is that they usually start with GFS output at 50 km spacing but use no more observational data. I am probably rather jaundiced but without observational data it seems a nonsense to try to make detailed predictions. It is like a doctor making a detailed prognosis after a cursory diagnosis.

There are some sites run by National Met services that do run meso-scale models “correctly.” These are available for the North Sea, Baltic waters, Icelandic waters, Spain, canary and Balearic Islands and Scandinavia, These are all from HIRLAM, a limited area model run by a number of the smaller European countries.

There are national Met service meso-scale forecasts for Croatia and Greece. All these can be found on my site or by CA members on the Cruising Association weather pages.

Probably the best model is the 1.5 km grid model for the UK. Unfortunately, their wind presentation is not very good. Their main concern is precipitation and strong winds over land.

Remember that wind is greatly affected by local topography that is not well represented by any model. Also remember that small weather features have short lifetimes. It is not at all clear to me that such detailed forecasts are of any great value over and above what experience teaches us.
That is

1. With strong winds, headlands, cliffs, straits etc can all create local increases.
2. Heavy showers will often create strong gusts and squalls.
3. Sometimes these get organised into squall lines.
4. Sea breezes can cause winds up to F 6 and create both increases and changes in direction.
5. Few of these effects can be predicted specifically.
6. Or, if the can, the lead time between data collection, processing, running the model amd distribution will make the forecasts useless for our general use.
   

For some rather general advice, see http://weather.mailasail.com/w/uploads/Franks-Weather/bookcover.pdf, due out early 2014.