Windyty.com wind forecast site

JohnShannon · May 18, 2016

Sallow now gives you a choice of models, but I will check it out, always hoping for something better

capta · May 18, 2016

Thanks, I'll give it a look.
So far, I've found Passage Weather to be just fine for our purposes. It gives a pretty accurate 3 day forecast (out of 8), which will get me around the islands or well on my way to or from Bermuda.
I don't think any of them does much better and they certainly don't take into account local oddities like the white squall of several weeks back off Canouan. I certainly don't waste my money or time on a weather routing service. Exactly the same information and models are available to me if I wish to use it, which I do in the hurricane season.
However, as I always say, if I did my job as captain half as well as the weather people do their forecasts, I'd sink my boat three times before I got her out of the slip. Trust none of them, and remember it IS your life on the line, not theirs.

BlowMeAway · May 18, 2016

Nice Brian...thanks for sharing. That link in now on my iPad.

Roland5048 · May 18, 2016

Tom-In-Annapolis posted the Windyty link in Sep. and All you Get also posted the link in Dec. Been using it ever since. Interactive and fairly accurate most of the time.

Kermit · May 18, 2016

I just added it to my home screen. Seems like wind is the hardest thing to forecast. Windfinder and Sailflow generally have similar predictions. Thanks!

Roland5048 · May 18, 2016

I also use Windfinder and find it as accurate Windyty. I just pulled up the Sailflow site and put in my city, state, and zip but it seems to be taking forever to load. Is this normal or is it just me?

centerline · May 18, 2016

capta said:
if I did my job as captain half as well as the weather people do their forecasts, I'd sink my boat three times before I got her out of the slip. Trust none of them, and remember it IS your life on the line, not theirs.

you're giving the forecasters way too much credit.... if you ran your boat with twice the accuracy of what the weather people offer us in their forecasts, you would be having some severe problems in navigating... but only about 40% of the time, which is their accuracy average

..... the other 60% of the time you would be doing great!

for weather forecasts, I will go with weather underground everytime, as its very accurate 95% of the time in this area.
I've never tried to use the wind forecasters yet, although I have looked at a couple sites, and they have all said the same thing at the time... "use the motor dummy, there aint no wind here and aint likely to be any until 10pm tonight".... and this was nothing more than I already knew

marke14 · May 18, 2016

Thanks for posting this link. I have a link to a similar visualization of this data, but you can't zoom in as far as you can with this one, this is great!

FYI for those of us who didn't notice this at first, you can click the small red line at the bottom to move the forecast into the future, or past, and the visualization changes accordingly.

I use WindGuru for numeric forecasts of my local area, and find it to be fairly accurate the majority of the time. I am a coastal day-sailor type of guy ...

http://www.windguru.cz/int/

Jackdaw · May 18, 2016

centerline said:
you're giving the forecasters way too much credit.... if you ran your boat with twice the accuracy of what the weather people offer us in their forecasts, you would be having some severe problems in navigating... but only about 40% of the time, which is their accuracy average..... the other 60% of the time you would be doing great!

I'd have to disagree. While local forecasts can vary, and coastal can be effected by small phenomena, the overall worldwide weather monitoring (which REALLY matters to blue water type) has gotten REALLY REALLY accurate over the last two decades. A huge tip of the hat to the computer scientist that solved this massively computational problem. They actually model the world.

Chart correlating the predicted 500-hPa level vs actuals on the the standard 3,5,7 and 10 day models. On the three day forecast, we pretty much have it nailed.

There are like TWO big outfits (and some mid-sized ones) that run this type of weather models. EVERY web sit you might visit uses of of these.

centerline · May 18, 2016

Jackdaw said:
I'd have to disagree. While local forecasts can vary, and coastal can be effected by small phenomena, the overall worldwide weather monitoring (which REALLY matters to blue water type) has gotten REALLY REALLY accurate over the last two decades.

Actually, I know and I agree with you.... but it wont stop me from poking at the weather forecasters whenever I see a chance

...
and I dont know what weather model they are working from, but I can say with certainty, that the weather underground site is consitantly more accurate that the local weather forecasters in THIS area, and it makes no difference if its a 3day forecast or a 7day forecast.

centerline · May 18, 2016

Brian D said:
Not sure if this has been posted before. I used to use Sailflow but got tired of it. I am sure Sailflow has improved over the years. Now I use Windyty. You have a choice as to which model you use, GFS13km or NAM6km.

https://www.windyty.com

I have just downloaded it..... how does one read it? according to the direction and color of the arrows on my screen, the portland oregon area is supposed to have 36-44kt winds tomorrow around 2pm... I just dont believe this to be correct.
edit.. when i go to the other screen it says 5.6kts....

JamesG161 · May 18, 2016

Brian D said:
. Now I use Windyty. You have a choice as to which model you use, GFS13km or NAM6km.

That is a "sexy" version of where they get their data.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/point.htm

Also FM channel 2 works if you want to listen.
Jim...

PS: The only problem I have had is that a front tends to move faster than their models, otherwise good to ±4 hours.

centerline · May 18, 2016

Brian D said:
there are two models that are available. I believe the website opens in GFS13Km which is the Global model. You also have the NAM5Km which is the North America. I think the NAM is more accurate.

got it, thanks... the phone app appears to have only one version.

Kings Gambit · May 23, 2016

Brian D said:
Not sure if this has been posted before. I used to use Sailflow but got tired of it. I am sure Sailflow has improved over the years. Now I use Windyty. You have a choice as to which model you use, GFS13km or NAM6km.

https://www.windyty.com

Someone did post on this earlier but I did not check it out then. After your post I've been looking at it in planning for an M-day weekend trip to Santa Barbara Island. Very useful and fun to look at; thanks. Of course, I "ground truth" it to the degree possible against the NOAA zonal forecasts and forecast discussions.

http://forums.sailboatowners.com/index.php?threads/average-winds-at-sea.178537/page-2#post-1288278

Windyty.com wind forecast site

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SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John

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