Weather Charts from Germany

[Captn D]

For a number of years I have been using forecast synoptic charts from wetterzentrale in Germany at this site (http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/semb24.html), because they are in nice colours and show forecast rain and generally easier to view than the normal black and white ones from the Met Office etc. However for the past two weeks they have not been available with a message saying "Not available until further notice". Does anyone know whether they have moved to another site, are just temporarily unavailable or gone for good?

 

[Angele]

Do you mean these (click "niederschlag" and the time you want at the top)?

 

[Captn D]

Do you mean these (click "niederschlag" and the time you want at the top)?

No. These were basically the same as the Met Office surface pressure charts but with temperatures shown in colour with rain shown as dots. They were in 24 hour periods from +24 to +120 hours. Easy for simpletons, like me, to understand.

 

[Captn D]

I have managed to locate them. They are from the 21st Operational Weather Squadron (USAF I believe) based at Sembach in Germany. They can be found at http://ows.public.sembach.af.mil/index.cfm?section=SFCProg. Click on Prog Briefing and date/time. Not good reading for the next 5 days!

 

[LadyInBed]

Try http://www.wetterzentrale.de/ search for the page you want and re-bookmark it

Looks like it is now http://www.wetterzentrale.de/wzwb.html

PS ows public sembach af mil is another colourful one

 

[ffiill]

They are still transmitting them as weatherfaxes-received some today so suspect change of web address.
In my experience government agencies often have such complex web sites they often never remove old pages /dead links!

 

[peterb]

They are all available via Frank Singleton's site at http://weather.mailasail.com/Franks-Weather/Weather-Charts-On-The-Internet. If you don't know it, it's well worth a look.

 

[franksingleton]

They are all available via Frank Singleton's site at http://weather.mailasail.com/Franks-Weather/Weather-Charts-On-The-Internet. If you don't know it, it's well worth a look.

Thanks.

 

[Jean]

I still get them from here: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/avnpanel1.html

 

[Baggywrinkle]

I've been playing with this recently ... seems very good.

http://www.grib.us/

Sign-up, download the software and get GRIB files to overlay on any GRIB capable system or PC Nav SW. Works really well with OpenCPN - download the weather straight into the GRIB file directory of the plotter SW and open it. Wind strength, direction, rain, isobars etc. all displayed on the nav chart.

http://opencpn.org/ocpn/

 

[franksingleton]

It all depends on what you want – or need. http://www.wetterzentrale.de/ is an excellent compilation of weather charts of many and varied forms. Many are beyond what we practical sailors can sensibly use. I refer to it on my site – who could not.

Do you really find http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/avnpanel1.html more useful than, say, http://weather.mailasail.com/Franks-Weather/Latest-Uk-Forecast-Charts-5-Days-Reduced-Size or http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forec...nd mslp!144!Europe!pop!od!oper!public_plots!/ or GRIB files?.

At http://weather.mailasail.com/Franks-Weather/Weather-Charts-On-The-Internet I have tried to give a selection of charts that sailors might find useful. It contains small thumbnails of UK charts as well as links to all UK forecast charts to 120 hours ahead.

The http://www.grib.us/ site referred to is Ugrib, one of many ways that you can get output from the US NOAA Global Forecast System. See http://weather.mailasail.com/Franks-Weather/Weather-Forecasts-On-The-Internet for info about GRIBs, what they are, how to get them and so on. We all have personal preferences. My favourite is zyGrib for its greater flexibility, better chart projections etc. BUT, most GRIB services are simply the GFS or are, in some cases, based on the GFS.

Personally, I do not like overlaying GRIB file output on my Nav charts. The GRIB winds from the GFS are about 30 miles apart. Zooming in to look at chart detail, the wind patterns get lost. I would rather have my met info on a separate display. But, that is purely a personal matter.