Sea Forecasts
Synoptics
Theory
Weather Buoys
Weather Stations
Satellites
Web Cams
Commerce
UTC

Weather

New/Amended links on August 19th, 2004

Forecasts for UK and Ireland Sea Areas

Best overview

theyr.net packs a really good view of weather information into a display. It's worth spending some time getting to understand all the options. The 'help' link explains most of it.
However, it doesn't explain a current (Summer 2004) inconsistency in the interface. The drop-down selection lists along the top of the display are regional only (at least initially - duh!). In order to get to a localised view (the Ireland view for instance) one has to either
1. Select Britain from the top drop-down list, at which point a text link to the Ireland view will appear. OR
2. Select Ireland (and a city) from the top drop-down menus in the top-left corner of the display.

Choose from wind, precipitation, cloud cover or temperature for the display. The hour-by-hour steps and animations let you see how things are developing.
Change from your local view to the Europe view to see what's coming at us from the Atlantic. Or indeed, wander the planet looking at the sailing weather in places where you really should have gone on holiday.
Wonderful!

(What the site needs in order to make it super-good is an explanation of why on each of two delivery trips from Cherbourg to Kinsale, the winds have been F6/F7 from the NW in the immediate aftermath of strong gales. Why? Was it something I did/said/didn't? In this life, in a previous life? Why?)

Another favourite for UK and Irish waters

The Sailing section of WeatherOnline has Wind, Surface Pressure, Wave Height forecasts at 3-hourly intervals for up to 7 days ahead. Coverage is by Sea Area.
There are weather reports from coastal stations, with a history for stations.
Satellite Images go back 3 days at 3-hourly intervals.

The big boys

Specific to Ireland

The official Irish Met web presence, http://www.met.ie has a marine section. This is useful for 'out-of-town' sailors as it describes the terms used in forcasts, which are different to those used in the UK.

In addition to Sea Area forecast and the Coastal Reports, they have a number of forecast charts. The synoptics are very basic however, and a sailor would need more detailed ones (below).

A Sea Area Forecast is also available on a teletext page from RTE , http://www.rte.ie/aertel/p162.htm

Synoptic Charts

Wetterzentrale, at http://www.wetterzentrale.de/ seems to be a happy hunting ground if you read German or are lucky. Here are Today's, 24-hour, 48-hour, 72-hour, 96-hour and 120-hour charts.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) has 3-day to 7-day forecasts at http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/charts/deterministic/world/msl_uv850_z500 The forecastis initiated the preevious day, so it works out as 2-day to 6-day forecasts. The overlay of wind speed at 850 hPa is optional.

Theory

Frank Singleton is a Met man who is also a "yottie".

The Meteorological Service of Canada site includes a fairly useful plain English introduction to weather theory.

Weather Buoys

Some of the loneliest cans on the planet are indexed at http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/Maps/England.shtml Check the wave heights, wind speeds and temperatures. Be thankful you're not there.

Weather Stations

A list of reports from weather stations around Ireland (and anywhere else in the world) can be found at http://www.wunderground.com/global/IE.html
Ignore the weather and pay close attention to the advertising. Enjoy the belief that someone else is paying for the technology.

Satellite

First: Two well-knowns.
Both sites offer brief explanations of the imaging techniques.

The UK Met office offer a range of satellite images at http://www.meto.govt.uk/weather/satellite/. If weather is important to you then the update schedule might not be sufficient. The visible version is updated once a day around noon. The infra-red images are updated every 6 hours. You can pay for more frequent updates. (or see the links below)

BBC Weather Centre (UK Weather section) page mentioned above has an option for Satellite. The thing insists on loading 9 slides for an animation, but at least it displays the most recent image while the loading progresses. The page also had an option for rain (Radar).

Digging deeper:

Meteosat

For a more detailed explanation of Meteosat images, go to the horse's mouth - http://www.eumetsat.de/en/. The Meteosat images within the site are worth a look. They allow you to view images taken at half-hourly intervals over the past 3 days.

And deeper

Then have a look at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~dbaron/sat/ , which claims to be (and may well be) "..the Internet's largest listing of weather satellite images".

This might at first sight appear to be a 'gee-isn't-it-pretty', but the Information About Satellites and Images is worth following.

Nottingham University - http://www.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk/pub/sat-images/
This site operates a Meteosat ground station and publish WEFAX images "usually .. within 5 minutes of reception". You get free WEFAX images every 30 minutes - which is a good deal.

Getting the most out of the site will require some spade-work. It's not all intuitive point-and-click. Just remember, if you can plot a course on a chart, or work with tide tables and secondary ports, then you can navigate around their filing system. The only thing holding you back would be an attitude problem.
Try the graphical interface section to find out which image files are of interest.

I'll add some commentary and pointers into that site 'sometime soon'(ish).

University of Dundee Satellite Receiving Station - at http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/ receive and publish images from NOAA and SeaStar polar orbiting satellites.
The free registration seems to be a way of delivering free to you things that might otherwise be expensive or unobtainable.

Web Cameras

The Net is well populated with webcams, but the very few seem to be pointed at the sea. Brighton Marina and Worthing, at http://www.weatherheads.com/ used to have have a webcam, but now are teamed up with Boatastic.com, who offer a string of webcam outputs to subscribers only.
That would appear to be it, sailing-wise, for the UK and Ireland.

A list of webcams at http://www.webcamsearch.com/links/Europe/United_Kingdom/ does mention the Irish Times webcam, but the weather in O'Connell Street, Dublin wouldn't be much help to a Cobh lad wondering how things looked further down the south-west coast.

The wind of change

Meteoservices offer a range of weather images such as this Beaufort scale graphic - http://www.meteoservices.be/wind/wi12.html. Throughout the site you'll come across reminders that someone (you, for instance) should be paying for the goodies.

It's a reminder that "where there's murk, there's brass". Hopefully competitive forces will ensure that the price is reasonable and that the quality is high.

UTC

UTC - is a term pasted all over weather charts, and is 'basically' what used to be GMT.

Once upon a time, there was a FAQ at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that said:
"Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is a 24 hour astronomical time system based on the local time at Greenwich, England. GMT can be considered equivalent to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) when fractions of a second are not important. However, by international agreement, the term UTC is recommended for all general timekeeping applications, and use of the term GMT is discouraged. "

So now you know.

But: Why is "Coordinated Universal Time" referred to as UTC ????
Simple! The English speakers suggested CUT, but the French wanted something, well, more French - so they compromised on something less English.

home