Forecast Wind Arrow Frustation

[dunedin]

i can’t think of any app (or tv forecast) that has ever drawn the wind anything other that the way it is blowing. This is completely logical. I can only assume you are confusing synoptic charts which use the tail of the arrow to show the direction it is coming from - but there is no arrow head.

Yes, wind Arrows on the internet are and have been consistent, long before mobile apps became common - arrow pointing left (west) means wind coming from the east.

The (sole?) “exception” that seems to have confused the OP is Chimet - a website only used by some Solent sailors.
I am not familar with that site as 400 miles away but took a look - and in fact it doesn’t use wind “arrows” at all, but an imitation of a circular dial, with Cardinal lettering round the edge - see below if I can add a photo.

Interestingly Raymarine made a change to their Lighthouse software a decade or so ago to ensure no ambiguity - their imitation of a circular dial on my plotter shows a triangular shape, wider at the outside of the dial and pointing inwards. So a wind coming from the starboard beam has an arrow pointing to the port beam, but starting at the RHS of the dial. Easier seen than explained.

So perhaps somebody could suggest that Chimet makes a minor change to their pseudo wind dial to have the thin end at the centre and the wide end at the edge, like Raymarine did a while ago. Then the OP will have a less stressful life not having to worry about this.



PS. Yes we are currently motoring as nice wind dropped to just 2-3 knots and that is too little even for us on passage.

 

[benjenbav]

ISTM that, with the dial (per Chimet; as shown in post #21) the viewer intuitively assumes themself to be in the centre of the dial and, hence, looking into the direction from which the wind is coming.

Take away the dial and it becomes more intuitive to depict an arrow that shows where the wind is coming from and going to, with the pointy end in the ‘going to’ direction.

I would guess that many meetings were held and many packets of hobnobs consumed during such meetings between the designers of such things.

 

[LittleSister]

The naming of winds by their apparent origin - 'that old North wind' - is ancient (I seem to recall this goes back to at least the ancient Greeks). I suspect that increasing focus on the heading of the local wind flow is a result of increasing use of chart work

When you are standing in a field the direction the wind is coming at you from, locally, is the obvious reference. Hence wind vanes pointing to the (local) origin direction.

When you are plotting/calculating your wind and tidal etc. vectors compared to your course - whether boat or aircraft - or working up a synoptic chart, you are more interested in the direction of flow (and at the scale of the synoptic chart example the 'local' origin direction won't be the same as the ultimate origin of the wind).

I can't remember ever having any confusion about what any particular indicator was telling me. The Met Office website labelling (which obviously intended to refer to the origin letters - 'ESE' etc. - two lines below), rather than the flow heading arrows) one line below, is just careless web page layout (the whole of which is poor compared to its predecessor, in my opinion).

I think this thread is just a load of hot air!

 

[Babylon]

I think this thread is just a load of hot air!

I agree with your post entirely.... but, as we are sailors rather than balloonists, allow me to pour cold water on it!