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View Full Version : WEATHER LOGIC ?CONFUSED?



backhoe
10-02-2006, 04:57 PM
Wnet for a bit of a fish early this afternoon based on what was a pretty reasonable forecast for where I was going ('Pin area). About 2PM 20-25knot SE change came through. Fair enough I thought, weather forecaster can get it wrong sometimes. When I got home thought I'd just look on the web to see what they have changed the forecasts to.
Seabreeze and Buoyweather were way out with the change nowhere to be seen.
Then I got onto my third option the BOM. Go into Brisbane metro forecasts and Moreton bay forecast issued at 1624 says change this evening (even though it had been here for 2.5 hours already). Out of interest went into the marine forecast section and looked at the moreton bay forecast (which I always thought was the same as the one on the Birsbane metro page) and it was issued at 1506 and said SE winds 15-20 knots (which is actually correct!!!!).
Does anyone know why there is such a discrepancy in two forecasts issued by the same authority for the same area????

MulletMan
10-02-2006, 05:23 PM
Tell you what Backhoe, no matter what happened to the weather, how great to see a Boatie who pays so much attention to the weather and makes an effort to understand it, lives with it, makes allowances and then does some research to see what the problems may have been. With that attitude Mate, you are one of the true professional Boaties out there who will hopefullynever get into trouble. First of all, SEABREEZE and BUOYWEATHER do NOT use Australian BOM data but instead use OFFSHORE models as they say i.e. probably out of the USA somewhere! They both advised this to me directly by email and I posted it here somewhere a week or so ago. Not saying they are not very professional organizations, they have great web pages and some excellent educational and informative stuff for Boaties so don't discount them by any means. Always a good double check!
Just remember that the weather source is NOT necessarily where the real weather is!

I'm too lazy to check out the individual weather reports you mentioned but I would respectively suggest that you stick to the Marine Boating forecast all the time. BOM most probably have different parameters for updating a forecast. For example, if there is a temperature change of say five degrees on the marine forecast anticipated, then maybe that demands them to crank out a new forecast ....... I guess I could find this out for you guys......geeeez, work, work, work................!
Another thing to remember, that the weather system causing the SE is about 4000 x 2000 kilometres in size being 8000 square kilometres overall. Pretty big and and it only takes the most minor hiccup of temp/wind/Baro changes (plus lots more) to slow down or speed up the weather. Your 2.5 hour example in the weather industry would be viewed by most #to be highly accurate . Bit of a bumma at the Pin I know but your little patch of water down there is only a couple of hundred square metres - kinda small when viewed to the 8000 K's above eh! In one of my legendary and much sought after weather courses I post here ;) ;) ;), I intend next week to concentrate on this aspect of why weather forecasts go wrong (15% of the time usually)

Keep up the great work on asking "why" when it comes to weather. Top stuff! # ;) ;D :D :)

Darryl
10-02-2006, 06:15 PM
Yeah i must admitt i live on one of the Bay Islands and was watching Seabreeze etc today and just couldn't believe the difference in what they were saying to what was happening.

Since about 2/230 pm it has been blowing 15 to 20 and at a guess i would say gusting up too 25. Seabreeze had it at 5 knots and 5 to 8 knots at the Banana Banks.

That's a hell of a difference to the 20 knots it was blowing by 2 oclock at Russell Island. And i can see The banks from where i am..

So at the moment it is saying 5 knots in Brisbane??? and 25 knots at the Banana Banks. Now at a guess i would think that if it's blowing 25 at the Banks it would be an odds on bet that it would be blowing 25 in most areas of the Bay.

Dunno if anything i said there helps or even makes sense, but hey, i had a go lol. ;D ;D

charleville
10-02-2006, 06:23 PM
I was about to post something in the same vein as the above. #Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a picture of the Seabreeze forecast from now until tomorrow front-ended against the back-end of the measured wind at the Inner Beacon all from the same page on seabreeeze.com.au ...

seatime
10-02-2006, 07:32 PM
This is a very interesting subject, the reliability of forecasts. I've been following the various threads that have related to weather forecasting.
As a supporter of the BOM I see our day has arrived. There has been a lot of support for seabreeze and others and criticism of bom.
It just goes to show how difficult it is to accurately predict the weather.
Seabreeze got it lucky for a while as patterns weren't behaving too unusually. But they weren't able to keep up when more critical data was required and more precise equations applied. If they rely on mostly data feed from satellites they are only going to get some pieces of the puzzle not all the pieces as BOM are able to access.

Darryl
10-02-2006, 07:56 PM
Yes Gelsec i must admitt i have been watching all three weather "stations" so too speak for the last week , and for my money i will be sliding towards BOM. Over the last week they seem to be the pretty accurate compared to Bouy Weather and Seabreeze.

I mean Seabreeze today was an absolute joke ,and if you went out in a small boat going solely on there prediction you could have been in trouble.

Just my opinion.

Regards

Darryl

2DKnBJ
10-02-2006, 10:46 PM
Darryl
You are one of the lucky ones that can look out the window and see what the weather is doing first hand(in regards to boating) For us other poor buggers that don't live near the water it becomes a constant guessing game.
Today Seabreeze and BOM had two tatally different predictions for todays weather.
I also try and check as many weather scources as poss before heading out so i can make my own decision.Hopefully with Pinkpanthers tutorials we may all understand the weather a bit more.
Cheers Dazza

Darryl
10-02-2006, 10:53 PM
Yeah i hear ya Dazza, mate when i was out at Amberley it cost me 50 bucks in the v8 just to get the boat to the water. Nothing more disheartning than rolling up to the ramp to find out that the predicted 5 knots of s/e is n/e at 20 knots.

Spose i am lucky in that way now, you would think living here i would be fishing more. ::) ::)

2DKnBJ
10-02-2006, 11:03 PM
Mate there is no thinking about it.Like the NIKE logo "JUST DO IT'
Cheers Dazza

Owen
11-02-2006, 06:00 AM
Hey maybe Darryl can post his home phone number so all the ausfish boys could give him a call for a eyewitness report before heading out :-X
Before you turn that cat on me Darryl, I'm doing you a favour.
Seeing as how you'd be awake at 4am, you may as well go fishing ;)

cheers
Owen

Darryl
11-02-2006, 06:59 AM
Owen mate , i honestly wouldnt mind, i'm normally up then anyways.

The cat i save for special occasions only, so ya safe. ;D ;D ;D

Dazza , your right, i might be more interested though in more fishing trips if i could actually catch fish ::) I'm pretty sure my wife thinks i'm hitting the brothels and not fishing at all. ;D ;D

seatime
11-02-2006, 07:18 AM
Backhoe,
I've been looking for the diff Bris metro and South coast boating area forecasts. They seem okay last night and today.
Maybe u caught them between updates, they probably have a program for updating the pages and the MB forecast on the metro page may be updated at diff times? may the weather gods be with you.