Med weather sources

Magnum

Magnum

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Off to Banus on Tuesday and intend to start heading up the Spanish coast on Friday. I've got a few good UK weather sites but am a bit short of those covering the med. Any suggestions?
 
Given your short hop strategy, the marina office your in and if you want to be double belt and braces a call to the marina your going to. Reality in yhe med not a lot changes over 100 miles in shore and plenty of stopping points if your unlucky.
Have a great trip and chill a little.
 
yep, local marinas will be best forecast for short notice.

Longer term stuff is available for plentiful worrying about it all a week or more ahead, notably www.windguru.cz and www.wetterzentrale.de, with wide selection in the latter such as http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsavneur.html

It seems that there might be some lumpiness on the thursday with W winds through straits up to 30knots. But alll this can change of course.

Best of course for long term is to (frinstance on costa del sol coast) keep a record of the forecast given today for next thursday, and look again at it tomorrow, and the day after etc to see if stays the same - to get a good indicator of reliability.

For short-hop daytime lunch-centric strategy as i think magnum plans, i wd fuel (if needed) on arrival and be ready to leave early early in the mornings for flattest water - the weather will def be best before midday when the onshore "breeze" can be axshully a bit 5-6 white horsified.

I wd disagree with the idea that weather about the same for any 100miles in the med as the wind can suddenly seem to be "turned on" or "turned off" within the space of five miles.

No matter, the coast hoppping shd be fine and the whole trip from gib is only er 500ish miles? A key bit is of course the open water crossing towards ibiza when if the mistral/tramonata has been blowing it can be a bit lumpy and the wave period is v short so they just hityer - the boat can't "ride" them, and as Suncoast has pointed out, even tho there might be not much wind the swell/waves continue to sulk around cos there's no tide. If this happens then praps continue to hug the coast to Cartahegna which is cheap or Alicante which is a better stop really, but both with big entrances v easy, and nice people on the fuel pontoon at alicante understand armwaving/spanglish too, and from alicante it is almost due east to balearix and bout erm 60? miles ish.
 
IMHO LTerm forecasts and the Med are not synonymous. The localised nature of weather sytems and micro climates dictate that 1-2 day is the limit of normal high percentage predictability. Twice in the last month we have had 'Mistral' weather in the Var ( St Trop and West), while 40 miles way on the CdA it has been hot and calm.

This year seems even less predictable than most ( if you are looking for Force zero) ....

Bottom line (as others have said) is the capitainerie forecasts and looking out of the window ...

Edit : TCM has just posted similar with better info on tracking changes ..
 
Magnum, I agree with all the above, one thing to watch if leaving port to cruise early morning, is the med is plaged with small commercial fishermen who are all out draging nets in the morning. They all seem to have the ability to make their nets float just below the surface!!!!!!!!
 
Here's a couple more if you're bored

Meteo Consult

Weather Online

I would agree with tcm's comments. Med weather is indeed unpredictable in that conditions can be different across a relatively small geographical area. Also I've occasionally found even same day forecasts just plain wrong. As a general rule (tcm advice), do your passagemaking early in the morning for calmest wind and be aware that sea breeze combined with an onshore wind in the afternoon can set up some quite choppy seas (coast north of Alicante is often like this). But overall, I would'nt worry too much. It's going to need a F6+ to spill the G + T's on your boat
 
Like that first link.

Yep, OK. So we set off early doors each day and get flatter water. Look at forecasts but be prepared for change and have contingencies if things whip up a bit. I think I can cope with that.

Oh, one more thing about fuel. When are fuel berths in Spain generally open? All day? Shut in afternoon? What about Sundays?
 
Re: Fuel availability

[ QUOTE ]
When are fuel berths in Spain generally open? All day? Shut in afternoon? What about Sundays?

[/ QUOTE ]
Easy for you to fuel up in Alicante, Moraira and Marina de Denia. (Some really nice restaurants in Moraira, and right next to the marina, if you want to get off and relax for a few hours). Forget Calpe for fuel as the fuel jetty is more often than not covered by fishing boats.
7 days a week fuel in Denia; daylight hours.

I think there should be a "Magnum" forum for the next few weeks so we can all follow progress easily

Steve
 
Re: weather sources

On my weather page there is a link to the GMDSS Global marine shipping forecasts with a map so you know the areas too.

www.stronge.org.uk

It's all text based so fast loading too and cheap for mobiles. Other option is the GRIB data and specify the lat and long for the area you want - you'll need a GRIB viewer like maxsea or Raytech software for this (Raytech demo works a treat).

Hope this helps


Mark
 
Depends where you are. I seem to remember that Denia was open all day but found fuel berths in Balearics were often closed 1300 - 1500/1600. Sunday opening hours much like any other day
 
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