Patrick's Sailing Blog

Ted Buehner (sounds like beaner) presented a dizzying amount of links and resources from the NOAA, or the National Organization for the Advancement of Acronyms. ;-) He pointed out all of the great weather resources available to you form your government. I was going to say free, but in reality we pay $2.50 per taxpayer for the weather services from NOAA. Anyway, Ted did a great job and thank Uncle Sam he had handouts because he covered so many sites it really was next to impossible to really capture down all the information in my notes. Here are some of the key links:

• Ocean Prediction Center: http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov – This is the main site and the one you need in your favorites, from here you should be able to find everything, or at least you can spend weeks looking.
• Mariner’s Guide to the 500–Millibar Chart: http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/articles/MWL_GUIDE_500MB-1.pdf – This PDF tells you what you’re looking at when you’re reading the graphical weather information which is what most cruisers use for self-forecasting.
• Graphical Weather Icons: http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/product_description/PLBZ04.GIF – What do all those shapes mean on the 500–Millibar Chart or any other weather map for that matter?
• Loops: http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/Loops/ – These are great, you can see 3, 7, or 14 day loops of the 500 Millibar Charts, Satellite Maps, Sea States, and other information. Lots of cool info!
• Other Marine Weather Related Links: http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/links.shtml

That’s enough to get you completely overwhelmed I’m sure. Here are some links to specific Seattle weather information.

• West Point Weather Buoy: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=wpow1
  • Combined Wind, Speed, Barometer Image: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/show_plot.php?station=wpow1&meas=wdpr&uom=E
• Seattle Tides: http://tidesonline.nos.noaa.gov/plotcomp.shtml?station_info=9447130+Seattle,+WA
• Puget Sound and Hood Canal Text Forecast: http://weather.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/fmtbltn.pl?file=forecasts/marine/coastal/pz/pzz135.txt – Put this one in your cell phone favorites!