solenthandbook.com 22 WEATHER CONTRIBUTED BY SIMON ROWELL, ROWELL YACHTING SERVICES WEATHER Tea and the Art of Weather Forecasting With the internet there’s so much weather information available. There are lots of apps and websites out there that will give you forecasts every hour for any location, down to previously unheard of spatial resolutions. These are really useful and really convenient, and all you need to do is trundle around the ones that are colourful & easiest to use and choose the forecast that suits you best – right? WRONG! While it is undoubtedly true that the many different avenues to get information are very useful, they don’t automatically lead you to the best result. It’s a bit like sat-nav – if you use it all the time you forget how to read maps and how to keep your sense of direction. The Mark 1 eyeball is still one of the best weather observation tools around, and this is how I start my morning weather forecast. I’ll get myself a mug of tea, go outside and watch the sky. It’ll take a few slurps of tea for the grey matter to kick in, but then I’ll start to notice things. What I’m looking for to start with is what sort of sky is it and which way is it moving. There are almost always clouds around – are there lots, is the sky covered, is it raining? Then which way are they moving – this is a great way to look at the overall synoptically driven wind. In the early morning especially the air at the surface may be disconnected from the movement above and it will take a bit of heating for the synoptically-driven wind to mix its way down to surface. Also, if you’re on a boat then you’re likely to be moored or anchored somewhere sheltered, out of the reach of whatever the weather is doing. Once I’ve got this worked out (and finished my tea) then I’ll go and look at the bigger picture. The clouds I’ve just seen will be part of a larger synoptic feature, a depression or a high pressure system perhaps, so I’ll look at the Met Office synoptic charts to see what’s with us now (the most recent analysis chart) and the next available forecast charts. I do this to get an overall context – as an example the high wispy clouds that have just looked lovely in the morning light may well be the first clouds ahead of an incoming warm front. Then I’ll look at the latest satellite image, and the Met Office website lets you see this overlaid with the rainfall radar every 15 minutes. This allows me to see that the features on the chart are backed up by what’s actually happening – really important. Not including brewing my tea this has taken about 5 minutes. Need a bigger mug... Becky Walford