{"id":6771,"date":"2009-08-31T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-31T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/?p=6771"},"modified":"2009-08-31T03:02:58","modified_gmt":"2009-08-31T08:02:58","slug":"national-buoy-data-center-wonderful-source-for-real-time-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/national-buoy-data-center-wonderful-source-for-real-time-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"National Buoy Data Center – Wonderful Source For Real Time Weather"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you’re trying to evaluate weather data – raw models like GFS or faxes from a forecaster – there is always an element of doubt. Just how accurate is the forecast?<\/p>\n

An excellent source for real time data is the National Buoy Data Center – http:\/\/www.ndbc.noaa.gov\/<\/a> where you will find not only US data but the rest of the world as well.<\/p>\n

Take our recent experience coming down the Irish Sea.<\/p>\n

\"Pssg<\/p>\n

There were two buoys we checked periodically. This one centered between Ireland and Wales in the UK, and another near Lands End at the bottom of the UK. The data above is for the most recent hour. Wind strength, wave height and period, and barometric pressure are of particular interest.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Pssg<\/p>\n

This is the data south of us off Lands End. Note that the winds are lighter and since the weather is coming at us from this direction a good portent for the future.<\/p>\n

\"Pssg<\/p>\n

The recent history on an hourly basis for the buoy near Lands End indicates a clear trend toward lighter winds and rising barometer.<\/p>\n

\"Pssg<\/p>\n

You can also look at the data graphically. This is wind speed (blue line, left data range) and barometric pressure (green line, right data range). Note the correlation between rising pressure as the front has passed and dropping wind speed.<\/p>\n

\"Pssg<\/p>\n

Now this is really cool. There is a link to satellite derived surface wind speed data on each one of these buoy pages. It gives you a more general view, although not hourly as with the buoy data. This data covers the Atlantic to the southwest of the UK, Ireland, and southern Europe.<\/p>\n

As you may have noticed these images were recorded sat 0400Z or 0500 local time. With this confirming information we were assured that our take on the weather had a reasonable chance of being accurate (and indeed we had a lovely 195 mile passage to Falmouth).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you’re trying to evaluate weather data – raw models like GFS or faxes from a forecaster – there is …Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dashew-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6771"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}