Guest Guest123456789 Posted February 11, 2017 Share Posted February 11, 2017 Is it just me or in the last month or so have the popular weather sites become very inaccurate? i use willy weather, seabreeze, weatherzone and bom. Specifically, the swell and wind observations and forecasts have been really wrong. Take yesterday for example. The sites said 1.6 metres ENE swell with 15 knot ESE winds and on the water it was more like 2 feet E swell and 4 knots SSW. There were few other boats on the water as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wizza Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 We're all in the same boat!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Short Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 Windguru pro and Passageweather are the best in my opinion for wind and wave forecasts. Other sites only update their forecasts once daily from GFS, Windguru and Passageweather update automatically as soon as GFS updates which is 4 times daily I think. BOM runs their own ADFD which is largely based on GFS. Yesterday around Sydney had winds from all points of the compass at some stage of the day which is a bit different. It's rare the forecast models can accurately pick subtle wind changes around the coast particularly dawn/dusk, they usually get the bigger scale stuff correct though with large southerlies coming through etc. Waves is a tough one - measuring is so subjective, one man's 3ft is another mans 1m or 2m or 4ft its a bit tough to compare. All affected by where you are, local wind, refraction from headlands etc. Windguru pro is best for swell as it will give you 3 x different swells in the water at any given time. Swell forecast sites like Swellnet are pretty handy too - gives you different swells in the water and usually people report on swell conditions and wind from the beaches 2 or 3 times a day. Live cameras are pretty handy too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolongeramember Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 4 hours ago, flatheadluke said: Is it just me or in the last month or so have the popular weather sites become very inaccurate? i use willy weather, seabreeze, weatherzone and bom. Specifically, the swell and wind observations and forecasts have been really wrong. Take yesterday for example. The sites said 1.6 metres ENE swell with 15 knot ESE winds and on the water it was more like 2 feet E swell and 4 knots SSW. There were few other boats on the water as well. How long before the actual day are you talking about? A few days before or the night before for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest123456789 Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 12 minutes ago, Short said: Windguru pro and Passageweather are the best in my opinion for wind and wave forecasts. Other sites only update their forecasts once daily from GFS, Windguru and Passageweather update automatically as soon as GFS updates which is 4 times daily I think. BOM runs their own ADFD which is largely based on GFS. Yesterday around Sydney had winds from all points of the compass at some stage of the day which is a bit different. It's rare the forecast models can accurately pick subtle wind changes around the coast particularly dawn/dusk, they usually get the bigger scale stuff correct though with large southerlies coming through etc. Waves is a tough one - measuring is so subjective, one man's 3ft is another mans 1m or 2m or 4ft its a bit tough to compare. All affected by where you are, local wind, refraction from headlands etc. Windguru pro is best for swell as it will give you 3 x different swells in the water at any given time. Swell forecast sites like Swellnet are pretty handy too - gives you different swells in the water and usually people report on swell conditions and wind from the beaches 2 or 3 times a day. Live cameras are pretty handy too! What's ADFD and GFS? The cams I have come to rely on because the apps are so inaccurate lately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest123456789 Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 9 minutes ago, Roylo said: How long before the actual day are you talking about? A few days before or the night before for example. The night before. Even the real time data is wrong! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Short Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 GFS is the Global Forecast System run by the United Stated National Weather Service. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Forecast_System It basically predicts weather across the globe. Many weather websites/services get their data from GFS, some just update more frequently than others. ADFD is the Australian Digital Forecast Database which is put out by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). I believe they take global forecast models including GFS then refine them to a certain extent both manually and using ridiculously powerful computers to produce Australian forecasts. The thing that I prefer with GFS based forecasts is that they update and can be viewed multiple times a day, where ADFD based forecasts only update for end users (ie. us) once a day. Plenty can change in 24 hrs especially when there is a storm or severe weather event around. MHL bouy data is also pretty handy - http://new.mhl.nsw.gov.au/data/realtime/wave/ ^^ It gives you real time data for actual swells in the water and also a directional spectrum which tells you how much energy is coming from what direction, even multiple directions.... there are buoys right up and down the NSW coast so you can track a big south swell as it comes up the coast, or a big NE swell the few times a year we get them. Also gives real time sea surface temps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finin Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 Forget seabreeze, willyweather, and even bom, the only good thing about bom is the synoptics. Seriously go with passageweather. Has not faulted me for 5 yrz. Your other option is to learn to read a weather map and learn what clouds are what and their meaning. After learning clouds you wont need a weather map. They are even more important as they show local weather in advance. You can basically time weather off a cloud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest123456789 Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 Seems like a few votes of confidence for passageweather. I had a loot at it looks good. I'll give it a go. Thanks for the tip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RexSenior Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 Willy Weather has been my go to and very accurate on almost every occasion in the last few years for my area. Wind changes and times have been spot on which is massive for me being land based. You're right though Luke the last month or so they have dropped the ball. The data comes from the B.O.M. but there's a clear issue with the syncing into the Willy Weather site. For example this morning showed the peak temp to be 34 degrees at 6pm in Belmont, and stay around that until 11pm. When I checked the wind prediction this morning the southerly was 4pm - spot on as predicted which dropped temps dramatically - the weather section only picked this up as it was happening then adjusted the predicted temp down (after the fact). Hopefully this gets sorted soon, there are a number of complaints being actioned directly to the site. Cheers, James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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