solenthandbook.com 23 WEATHER By now I’ve got an idea something like this – “there’s a cold front forecast, it’s over Dartmouth now and if I look at the rain radar it’s taken 4 hours to get there from Lands End so I reckon I’ve got about 6-7 hours before it gets to me”. This is really useful info, and is based on real observations. My personal favourite source of UK weather is the Met Office, so I’ll then go to their website and get the hour-by- hour conditions for where I happen to be. However I’d like a second and even a third opinion, and also to download data to use in my navigation software, which I can’t do with the Met Office. I’ll now go onto an app that I’ve used before and understand. By understand I mean that I know where they get their source data from, when they get it so that it’s not too out of date, and a vague idea of what processing they apply to get the better resolution they claim. There are many, and most of them get their data from NOAA (the US equivalent of the Met Office). Some get it from ECMWF (the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts based in Reading). Of these two sources, the ECMWF model has a 9km resolution, NOAA’s 22km, compared to the Met Office’s 1.5km. Both are professional and sensible choices, and both have their own forecast model separate from the Met Office so make for good independent comparisons. This comparison is very important – if all 3 data sources say roughly the same thing, then I’m going to be confident that the forecast is of Your Sight and sound on the water Marine electronic Sp ecialist WWW.PLATINUMMARINE.CO.UK [email protected] @UKPLATINUMMARINE 01202 237585