Hackles rise over weather forecasts
- Tue, 2 Feb 2010
- Comments (2)
In PBO's March issue, on sale this Thursday, 4th February, editor Sarah Norbury asks whether the MCA and, by association, UK taxpayers, get value for money from the Met Office's forecasts. For those who missed the article from December's issue, Weather Forecasts, Can You Rely on Them? we've put it on our website for you to download for free. Click the link.
Latest comments
February 04 21:19
Tony Graham
Certainly a forecast is better than none, however very often on our round Britain Wayfarer sail the forecasts were well in error.I might add that by certain remote parts of our coastline Radio 4 Longwave was the only forecast available (ie no mobile phone coverage,no ,marine VHF, and on small boats Navtex is a non-starter. BBC R4 is all there was....better than nothing!! Tony Graham.
March 13 08:30
Adrian Mountjoy
In June 2009 we left Tenby to sail to Swansea with a forecast of 16 -18knts but 28kts was the average,gusting 32kts at times. Also the seas which were supposed to be up to about 1m were actually about 4m with our boat literally falling off the edge of waves. For this season we will use a variety of forecasts as suggested in a recent PBO issue. The main point is that we would not have left Tenby based on the actual weather that arrived.But in hindsight ,it was very good experience and we learnt a lot about our recently purchased boat.