setting a new barometer - where do i get the air pressure?

Burnham Bob said:
My boat is in the Bradwell Marina in the Blackwater, Essex. If I buy a new barometer whewre can I get an accurate local air pressure reading?
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Call your nearest gliding club or light aircraft airfield and ask them what the QNH is. That's atmospheric pressure at sea level (QFE is the pressure at ground level).
 
Take it to the nearest airport and try get access to the control tower. Their barometers have to be absolutely accurate because it makes a difference to the altimeter readings of aircraft in their circuit ie, the tower tells the pilot what local pressure is and the pilot adjusts his altimeter accordingly.
 
JumbleDuck said:
Call your nearest gliding club....
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Unless things have changed in the last 15 years, all three gliding clubs that I flew out of used 1013, which is the same as commercial aircraft use once out of the local ATC airspace, but you knew that.
 
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+1 for XC weather.

Try to do it when the reading is reasonably steady and as close to the average of 1013 mb as possible.

Now would be a good time.

Avoid yacht club weather stations . They are often not very accurate
 
Wait till high pressure. The isobars are widely spaced so your local weather station via xc weather will be spot on even if you are a few miles away.
 
GHA said:
All of the above :cool:

Or just leave it at the default setting, it's the change that's really interesting for us sailors.
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Oh, for goodness sake, Paddy, stop being so sensible - you're going to kill any arguments on here in one post and that would be boring.
 
stingo said:
Oh, for goodness sake, Paddy, stop being so sensible - you're going to kill any arguments on here in one post and that would be boring.
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:)

I wonder if the RNLI and SNSM calibrate their barometers differently? That might give us a clue as to which technique is better!
 
stingo said:
Unless things have changed in the last 15 years, all three gliding clubs that I flew out of used 1013, which is the same as commercial aircraft use once out of the local ATC airspace, but you knew that.
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Whatever they use, they will quite certainly know QNH and QFE. In my experience they all use QFE for local soaring (I never saw a or flew a UK glider which didn't show an altitude of zero at launch) but some cross country pilots use QNH for terrain clearance, as do all alpine pilots. If you're going into controlled airspace you need to use what the commercial stuff uses, which is regional QNH below the transition altitude and 1013 above it. It's nothing to do with being out of local ATC airspace.
 
Gwylan said:
Google metar taf and pick your area and airport nearest.
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he's pretty close to Southend Airport which publishes its barometer on the web. Keep an eye on the weather map, waiting for a day with no strong pressure gradient, then take the Southend figure
 
Dabchicks opposite Bradwell:

http://www.dscdata.org.uk/weather/index.html

Blackwater Sailing Club:

http://www.blackwatersailingclub.org.uk/weather/index_wd.html

Brightlingsea

http://www.sailbrightlingsea.com/brightlingsea-live-weather/

or you could go to:

http://www.crossingthethamesestuary.com/page31.html, goto the Met Office cameo thingy, select the pressure map, click on it and it goes to the Met Office and gives an overview so you can check on the previous weather sites to see if they look right.

Met Office link to Shoeburyness doesn't do more accurate than zero decimal points.

Take your choice
 
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All wrong. Or, if not wrong, slightly off target.

It has been a responsiblity of Harbour Masters since Pontius was a Pilot to maintain a correctly calibrated aneroid barometer, specifically so that ships in their harbour could calibrate theirs to the HM's. So go and ask.... Not the perfumed, nail-painted haridan at the front desk but the very well-seasoned ex-transocean tanker skipper in the back office who will know, with a twinkle, exactly what you're after. And will help.

The same obscure obligation applies to keeping all the UKHO chart corrections, so - in theory at least - you could rock up at the Dratmouth or Lymington office with a bundle of really old charts under your arm, and commandeer a desk in the warm for an hour or two......

Or maybe all that was quietly 'got rid of' by the last Labour government.....

( Y'see, us old bugrs do know some useful stuff... and we do know what to do with a barometer reading when we get one! )
 
Of course, after all the above sensible information, pound to a penny you'll buy an aneroid barometer and give it a tap every time you want to check the pressure .. ensuring that it will will jump a few millibars one way or t'other, making your microscopic adjustments to the calibration worthless (and if you don't tap it, they'll be just as inaccurate) :)

As mentioned above, it's the change that's important .. up or down, and how quick.
 
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