Weather forecasting (maritime) in the 1980/90s

AntarcticPilot said:
We live in such an information rich environment that it's really difficult to remember what it was like before the Internet and WWW!

Further, our ability to predict the weather has improved vastly since then. Short term forecasting in well known areas probably hasn't changed much, but global scale forecasting in areas remote from detailed observations is far better. The scenario of an un-forecast deep low surprising people isn't all that far-fetched for the period; it would be now.

That's good, thank you.

However, we all managed to sail and enjoy ourselves, and I am quite sure that my father (RIP) would NOT have regarded ubiquitous mobile phones as a good thing; he went sailing to get away from the telephone!
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We did, we did!

I now need to "create" some weather scenarios for two large boats of similar speed racing from Falmouth to Strathy Point - one east-about and the other west about (outside Ireland). :encouragement:
 
JumbleDuck said:
uk.ac.nsfnet-relay! bangpaths!

Kids today, eh?
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:rolleyes: Don't know they're. born!

Mind, I couldn't have earned a crust (or a marina berth!) by editing documents from the other side of the world "back then"! And I've just come off a free Skype call to Hong Kong to sort out an internet banking problem during which I was sent codes via SMS and accessed the bank's computer systems via the WWW. This is all so I can access my HK bank account and transfer funds to the UK! Even ten years ago that would have been bleeding edge stuff!
 
JumbleDuck said:
I found a pad of the Imray sheets for writing down shipping forecasts at the Irvine boat jumble last year. Joy! I doubt I'll ever use them, but fun for reminiscence.
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I've still got some in the chart table - I'm always amazed at what I find there.
 
At the risk of sounding like the ancient mariner - one of the things we did was use the barometer. I still do and very useful it is too.

Last year I was moored up on a raft at town quay in Lymington when a school boat came alongside. I told the skipper that I was happy for him not to bother with shore lines as it wasn't going to blow a hoolie to which he replied that the coastguard had just broadcast a gale warning.

This surprised me so I had another look at my barometer (now electronic and recording hourly readings). It still suggested all was set fair.

So I took a look at www.passageweather.com.

It told me that in Sea Areas Wight and Portland there were gales but only along the fringes of the French Coast. Off the south coast of England the the forecast was for nothing stronger than a 2. And so it proved!

Now, suppose it had been the other way round - except that the weather system due to cause the gales was that little bit further inland. That barometer could have saved me a lot of grief.
 
Interesting, and reassuring. Thanks.
I use my house and boat barometer all the time. I reckon I can predict winds onshore and close inshore quite well.

I had a barograph (at home) many years ago and I perplexed by a small dip in pressure around 13:00 on many days. I wondered if it might have been caused by my coming in for lunch. No amount of research could produce a reason. It was a small dip of a few millibars and lasted about twenty minutes before returning to its previous reading.

Odd!
 
Robert Wilson said:
Interesting, and reassuring. Thanks.
I use my house and boat barometer all the time. I reckon I can predict winds onshore and close inshore quite well.

I had a barograph (at home) many years ago and I perplexed by a small dip in pressure around 13:00 on many days. I wondered if it might have been caused by my coming in for lunch. No amount of research could produce a reason. It was a small dip of a few millibars and lasted about twenty minutes before returning to its previous reading.

Odd!
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Make your own with a raspberry pi and couple quid on a pressure/temp sensor :cool:

yftiuGV.png
 
We used to have a radio cassette recorder that could be programmed to record the Shipping Forecast. Much more convenient than staying up or getting up early. I also used to make good use of the synoptic charts published in the better newspapers, along with drawing my own. And there was, of course, the evening 'studying the sky ritual'. There would be a collection of skippers standing looking west each evening, checking the wind direction compared to the high-level winds, looking for 'mare's tails' etc.
 
Robert Wilson said:
14:30 ish. Interesting dip.
Please explain about a Raspbery pi and pressure/temp sensor. Is this on a mobile phone, or whatever?
Sounds useful.
TIA
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A bit on the DIY side, but cheap raspberry pi computer running a software operating system called opencpn does it all, add the sensor then a little bit of programming to save it and display as a webpage.
Very powerful system, has opencpn preinstalled.
 
Robert Wilson said:
Thanks. Food for thought!
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Of no help to your actual question I'm afraid, but quite amazing just how much is available now compared with then!

And fascinating :cool:

A nasty belt of wind and rain just went over with a little blip in pressure >
q5Jx2cR.png


Thinking it might have been this trough - 18.00 met office synoptic over grib for the same time on opencpn >

bV35AgU.png
 
Impressive, indeed.
Is opencpn a navigation tool including weather, or is there another step to get the weather data overlaid?
And is a free tool/combination, or a chargeable item.
I only ask as my plotter is out of commission at the moment and I would like to "play" with the set-up on my laptop (without paying twice!)
 
Robert Wilson said:
Impressive, indeed.
Is opencpn a navigation tool including weather, or is there another step to get the weather data overlaid?
And is a free tool/combination, or a chargeable item.
I only ask as my plotter is out of commission at the moment and I would like to "play" with the set-up on my laptop (without paying twice!)
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It's all free. :cool:
Though if using it a lot no doubt us honest folks would send a donation their way.

https://opencpn.org/OpenCPN/info/downloads.html
https://opencpn.org/OpenCPN/plugins/weatherfax.html

Latest weatherfax plug is probably this one ->
https://github.com/rgleason/weatherfax_pi/releases

The grib viewer is built in.

Not sure there's anything else out there lets you overlay sat images over synoptics over gribs.
 
StormNorm said:
We used to have a radio cassette recorder that could be programmed to record the Shipping Forecast. Much more convenient than staying up or getting up early. I also used to make good use of the synoptic charts published in the better newspapers, along with drawing my own. And there was, of course, the evening 'studying the sky ritual'. There would be a collection of skippers standing looking west each evening, checking the wind direction compared to the high-level winds, looking for 'mare's tails' etc.
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Me too. Also playing back a few times helped to fill in the gaps for drawing the synoptic when you are trying to note it all down in shorthand.
 
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