Sailing Weather Information

Once you are out for sailing, one of the first thing you will notice is how much you depend on the wind and weather. Knowing as much as possible about these powerful forces might be crucial and a question of survival under some circumstances.

Even if you are just on a little daysailing trip, studying the weather forecast should precede your offshore adventure. To assist you with that, I collected a couple of links that I found useful. They will point you to general references as well as local weather forecast sites.
 

Specific Sailing and Cruising Forecasts

http://www.wunderground.com/MAR/
Extensive information on marine weather, water temperatures, waves and tropical storms. From heavy weather to sunshine, this website will guide you well.

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/home.htm
NOAA's National Weather Service is a great source of information for marine weather. Several sub-sections and links to regional pages help to find the info you need.

http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/
Another site by NOAA, "Tides & Currents" tells you everything a sailor needs to know about tides and currents. Who would have guessed that from the title? On a serious note, this website is very valuable and offers references to other great services.

http://www.wmo.ch/index-en.html
The World Meteorological Organisation is a UN suborganisation and operates this website. It is multilingual and presents information not only, but also about marine weather.

http://www.wunderground.com/auto/boatscom/tropical/
Another page from Wunderground, this one deals specifically with tropical weather and might be of use to you if you are cruising in the Caribbean, the Indian or Pacific Ocean or Southeast Asia.

https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/
The US Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center

http://www.weather.gov/ahps/
If you need to keep an eye on rivers, this page by NOAA will help you

http://weathernews.com/us/c/services/vp/oceanwatch.html
Ocean Watch offers marine weather services for cruisers and other offshore-folks

http://seaboard.ndbc.noaa.gov/
National Data Buoy Center, the name says it all - highly useful, as all NOAA pages


General Weather Forecast

http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/
Simply CNN's weather section - permanently updated and easily accessible

http://www.weather.com/
Delivers quick and easy weather forecasts for all areas worldwide

http://weather.yahoo.com/
Yahoo! tells you everything you need to know about weather from your area - better for coastal regions and towns, though, not so much for offshore purposes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/
BBC weather reports - with all the rain in England, these guys know when the sun shines
 

Local Weather Service for the U.S.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/
Southern Region

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/
Central Region

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/
Western Region

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/
Eastern Region

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/pr/hq/
Pacific Region

http://www.arh.noaa.gov/
Alaska Region
 

Specialist's Weather Websites

http://www.greatweather.co.uk/
Ant Veal's UK Weather Centre concentrates on the areas on and around the British isles

http://www.weather.org.uk/
A UK weather site that is particularly useful for people with low bandwidth or text-only browsers

http://metmarine.com/
Met Marine sends marine weather forecast information to your cell phone

http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/
The University of Dundee's Satellite Receiving Station offers a lot of general information from reliable sources

http://www.meto.gov.uk/
A public website of British origin that provides weather information useful for sailors and other people

http://www.rmets.org/index.php
Official Website of the Royal Meteorological Society - think of their legacy to navigation and maritime history, when you stop by this website!

http://www.wendywindblows.com/
Wendy Windblows - sounds like a somewhat dubious movie, but is in fact a wonderful site with information on weather for recreation

http://www.franksingleton.clara.net/
Weather for Sailors by Frank Singleton - interesting colors, but very useful even for people with low bandwidth

http://www.rte.ie/aertel/p162.htm
RTE sailing weather forecast - another site for people with bandwidth pressure

http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/sail.htm
Marine Weather forcast for Britain and Ireland

http://clipper.coastweather.com/
A commercial offer with the option to sign up for subscriptions

http://users.erols.com/gulfstrm/
Jenifer Clark's Gulfstream - a website dedicated to marine weather

http://oceanweather.com/
Another weather service, of use probably mostly for cruisers

http://marineweather.com/
They got the domain that says it all - Marine Weather

http://tww.id.au/wea/weather.html
Folklore Weather Forecast - private website

 

Further Reading

Back to "directory"

Weather and the Beaufort Scale

Foul Weather Gear Part I

Foul Weather Gear Part II
 

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