Boat owners warned . . .

[duppamiller]

"Boat owners warned to check weather forecasts before they leave harbour . . . " - is it just me or have the MCA picked the wrong weekend to remind us?

Don't know about the rest of the uk, but for the bristol channel the met office were wide of the mark for most of the weekend.

Surely a better message would have been 'Remember that the weather forecasters can get it wrong' not "Weather conditions were well forecasted" . . .

 

[ChrisE]

Yes, forecasts are just that and can be wrong but in this case the warning the CG pointed out was conditions in The Channel which had long been foretold (it was on XCweather for at least a week before and on ECMWF for about 10 days).

Do you have any suggestions as to how we might do it better?

 

[duppamiller]

Agree that the charts showed it coming - it was the text forecasts I was referring to - inshore waters on Sat AM stated that a trip out here on Saturday morning, returning Sunday afternoon, would encounter F6 at worst - you can see how people could get caught out . . . International standard aviation forecasts have 'PROB30' (30% chance), 'PROB40' and 'TEMPO' (50%+ chance) - would be a useful addition to the inshore forecasts?

 

[Guest]

You can not use probabilities with the general public. It has been proven. They tried it for a while.

Remember they buy lottery tickets!

 

[ChrisE]

Yes, I guess that kind of info would be useful and at present we work on the Met office standard caveat that a forecast should be interepreted as +/- 2 forces of the predicted. This covers the past weekend but to be honest none too useful.

 

[beancounter]

There are only 2 kinds of forecast:

a) lucky

b) wrong

 

[Slow_boat]

Re: There are only 2 kinds of forecast:

I'm often amazed that amature sailors think they can forcast better than professional meteorologists. Weather forcasting has come on in leaps and bounds over the past ten or twenty years and I would rather trust a met office forcast via CG than the weather lore of Old Harry down the club.

 

[pelicanpete]

Re: There are only 2 kinds of forecast:

Decent, powerful doppler radar images (in real-time plus forecast + historic) like they have in Florida and most other U.S. coastal regions every 10 minutes on the morning, noon and evening news broadcasts would be a great help to seeing what the weather is about to do. There's no black-art to it; the layman can understand it. Just wish ITV and the BBC would step up to the plate and do likewise. And you don't have to pay to get weather info over here. It's considered a matter of public safety!

Ah well, return to Blighty in another few days and back into the dark ages...

 

[Brierley]

[ QUOTE ]
Agree that the charts showed it coming - it was the text forecasts I was referring to - inshore waters on Sat AM stated that a trip out here on Saturday morning, returning Sunday afternoon, would encounter F6 at worst - you can see how people could get caught out . . . International standard aviation forecasts have 'PROB30' (30% chance), 'PROB40' and 'TEMPO' (50%+ chance) - would be a useful addition to the inshore forecasts?

[/ QUOTE ]

Surely that's why you need to pick up forecasts at least once a day whilst actually 'out there'? We went out on Friday on the Met Office website predictions of max F6 and VHF failed to pick up further forecast in Newtown Creek on Saturday. I used my mobile to pick up the Met Office website on Sunday morning and on the basis of the updated forecast (then predicting up to F8 for Sun and Mon) we decided to head for home a day early instead of original plan of going to Lymington. Once back out in the Solent, we were able to pick up the CG forecasts again and partway up Southampton Water heard the strong wind warning of F8-10 imminent.

I do think that people who rely on a 3-day forecast without checking for updates are asking for trouble, particularly when the 3-day forecast already has fairly strong winds showing. Sometimes it goes the other way and predicted winds just don't materialise but this weekend has proved it can go the wrong way very quickly.

 

[duppamiller]

Re: There are only 2 kinds of forecast:

So the Americans have more publicly funded met info than we do. And American SAR is publicly funded and ours isn't. Now there's a coincidence!

 

[photodog]

I agree with chris earlier that in fact their was considerable warning of the Sunday weather, certainly EMCWF were saying a week in advance that winds were gong to be high for the weekend,

I am very concerned about the dropping of the 3 day synop on the CG broadcast forecast, this weekend was a very key case in point, I saw the forecast on Friday, but their was no hint in the forecast for Sunday, yet by that time it was pretty clear that sunday was going to be pretty grim. (From Other forecasters)

I have been using that synop as a guide to what usefully lies ahead, in reality with only 24/48 hours you dont get a feal as to what may be coming. Its almost as if the met office is simply unwilling to give any indications as to what lies more than 24 hours ahead, yet many others seem able to at least give some guidance. Web forecasts are all fine and dandy, but in reality it is not easy to get this information on a boat when on the hook in the Helford River.

Look at their website, they give almost no detail past day 2. And certainly no usefull regional information. Anyone with any smarts, (And I would suspect this includes most yacht skippers) would realize that forecasts are not 100 percent, however they do give usefull guidance.

Could the three yachts caught out on Sunday have been victims of the Lack of a 3 day synop?

Anyways, I dont understand how in these times when we seem to be hammered for taxes for public services we seem to be accepting a diminution of the weather forecasting services that we have been getting on the VHf for as long as I can remember!

Rant over...

/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

 

[pelicanpete]

Re: There are only 2 kinds of forecast:

Agree regarding the public funding of the USCG SAR, so partly true. But the doppler radar data gathering is operated and owned by the individual broadcasting companies, i.e. CBS, NBC, ABC. hence no govt. involvement.

 

[Daedelus]

Re: There are only 2 kinds of forecast:

I think the synoptic charts showed very strong winds over the weekend for some time before, (I was convinced we'd make Cherbourg but not want to try to get back by about Tuesday) but this was not totally reflected in the forecasts we were getting from the Met office.

Word of praise for Navtex here, as we looked at that and got a very accurate and timely warning of gales through Wight in nice time to have a happy little sail through continuous rain and mist and F7 back to base. It would have been really nice if only it had stopped raining. Vote of thanks to the winds which (for once) were dead out of my berth and getting in was piece of cake.

 

[Bergman]

Re: There are only 2 kinds of forecast:

Our American friends are equally sensible in Europe.

http://ows.public.sembach.af.mil/

Gives lots of useful weather stuff - all for free.

 

[DOK]

[ QUOTE ]
'TEMPO' (50%+ chance)

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the TEMPO classifier is used to indicate a temporary weather feature - ie one that will generally be expected to last <1 hour. It is possible to see the PROB and the TEMPO classifiers used together.

 

[duppamiller]

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, the TEMPO classifier is used to indicate a temporary weather feature

[/ QUOTE ]

That was my understanding too - until I read an AAIB Bulletin (3/2007 if you're interested!) that stated "if the probability is 50% or more then is no longer considered to be a probability but is indicated by use of one of the change indicators ‘BECMG’ or ‘TEMPO’."

 

[Brian_B]

I think they are preaching to the converted.
Last Sunday's forecast for Plymouth was F7, F8 and F10 later.
By 1000 it was bright sunny F4 but just two boats out sailing.
Usually there's about 50!