Weather forecasts on route to the Med.

[SpiceIslander1]

I am hoping to set off across the Bay of Biscay, either direct from the West Country or via the Brest area of France to La Coruna next month, and would appreciate some advice on obtaining weather forecasts on route and whilst sailing down the coasts of Spain and Portugal towards thec Med.
I have a new Navtex on board, but would be grateful for advice on the best way to obtain weather forecasts on route and also before setting off across the Bay.

 

[BobnLesley]

We indeed most long-term cruisers seem to have a Navtex unit and we've always found it OK, though generally they only provide a 24 hour prediction; though as I remember the French forecasts perhaps did give a further 24/48 hour outlook? For our few longer passages, we've either logged onto the weather web-sites (Meteo France was particularly good/accurate) or picked up a long term forecast from a marina prior to departure. For 5 day coastal outlooks, we've also found the www.windguru.cz website (aimed at windsurfers) to be exceptionally good.
When we had longer passages to

 

[Tiercel]

You might also find www.windfinder.com (coastl Forecasts)and www.weatheronline.co.uk (offshore as well as coastal forecasts ) work well with 5 day predictions. We have found both reasonably accurate. When combined with daily navtex we generally feel secure. There are also the Spanish and Portuguese VHF forecasts detailed in the Pilot books.

Good Luck

 

[capnsensible]

I really like the way passageweather.com is laid out. As it says on the site, for sailors and adventurers!!
Does wind charts, synoptic and wave height, has an animation facility too.
I shall be using it for a passage back to UK from Canaries starting next weekend as a measure of my confidence in the site!!

 

[Roberto]

On Navtex, I found La Coruna/Niton/Cross Corsen bulletins to be different, both national and international versions so it may be useful to receive them all.
BTW, La Coruna navtex covers also Met zones Charcot and Josephine which are just west of Biscay so it may be interesting to listen to that too.

If you have an HF receiver, English language bulletins are broadcast from Monaco Radio at 0930UTC

 

[gavin_lacey]

magic seweed website is useful for swell forecasts (important on this route). ugrib is pretty good and can be configured to reduce download size if you need to log on via a mobile phone.

 

[chrisb]

i ve never managed to pick up navtex off spanish biscay coast. suggest weather on line usually very accurate. wetherzentrale and us grib very good.

 

[SpiceIslander1]

Thanks to all for the helpful comments.

 

[smartcom]

Have a look at the map at http://88.208.210.246/AboutNAVTEX/NAVTEXStations/NAVTEXCoverageChart/tabid/66/Default.aspx to see Navtex stations and their ranges.
You may also want to look at SmartMet for downloading both forecast and current weather reports - a wider range of data products than most weather download applications (see http://www.smartcomsoftware.com/smartmet.html)