SetSail's Weather Links

There are literally thousands and thousands of weather links on the Internet. This information overload makes it difficult to know what sites to visit, unless you have a huge amount of time. The weather sites listed below are our favorites. If you have interesting sites you'd like to share drop us an e-mail at weather@setsail.com.

Links are organized loosely into basic worldwide weather faxes, computer forecasts, tropical coverage, current condition reports, satellite data, general interest sites, oceanography sites, and sites with more good links. Where applicable, a few of the URLs are listed in multiple categories.

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/radiofax.htm

NOAA Radio Fax and Weather Products home page

http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/marine.shtml

NOAA USA Detailed Fax Schedules

http://www.weathersa.co.za/

The South African Weather Services site.

http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/

Australian Bureau of Meteorology home page. High seas text broadcasts along with cyclone warnings.

http://www.bom.gov.au/catalogue/

Australian fax charts, sea surface temperature, and long term analysis.

http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/national/charts/24hour_cgen.shtml

Current weather fax chart for Australia, New Zealand, Southern Ocean and Tasman Sea.

http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/national/satellite/

Latest satellite images of Australia and Southern Ocean. If you are in New Zealand, a good chance to see what's coming at you.

http://www.metservice.co.nz/forecasts/index.asp

New Zealand coastal and high seas forecasts.

http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/otherfax.shtml

UK, Brazil, Buenos Aires, Melbourne/Wellington, Montreal, and Tokyo fax chart links.

http://www.meteo.fr/meteonet/

French Met Service home page for marine charts.

http://www.mediterraneanweather.com/

Finally, a good source for Med-based weather data. Synoptic charts, satellite images, and warnings. Also some interesting links for additional Med weather-related URLs.

http://forecast.uoa.gr/forecastnew.html

University of Athens - weather data for the Med.

http://www.npmoc.navy.mil/

US Navy weather data for Europe with detailed data on the Baltic, Med, North Sea, and area around Spain.

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http://www.ecmwf.int/

European Community medium-range forecast models for sea surface and 500mb levels for 72 to 144 hours. Polar views (North and South) along with North Atlantic and Tropical Atlantic details.

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Historical analysis for tropical storms from around the world. Storm tracks, wind data, even satellite views for many storms. Probably the best historical site we've found. Emphasis on Atlantic and N. Pacific. Includes current satellite images for Atlantic and Eastern Pacific. Also has good links to satellite image and a variety of computer models (everything from MRF, AVN and ECMWF, to RUC).

National Hurricane Center Tropical Prediction Center. Latest faxes, hurricane advisories, and satellite images.

http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/honofax.shtml

National Weather Service Honolulu fax charts for various altitudes and surface.

http://www.npmoc.navy.mil/cgi-bin/abpwcreate.cgi?File=1

This is a very interesting typhoon warning page.

http://www.caribwx.com/

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/burn/wfabba.html

Satellite cloud image "loops" of the past 12 hours for the US, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Alaska. Loops re-load every ten minutes so you can leave them on your computer during the day and watch the weather progress. Good images of the high latitude areas. Should be very helpful watching tropical and temperate climate "events".

http://www.imcs.rutgers.edu/mrs/gulfstream/gulfst.html

There are a bunch of Gulf Stream references on the internet. Here's one suggested by Dan Neri, with relatively easy-to-use data frm Rutgers University.

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/sfctxt.html

Current conditions for US coastal waters.

http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/ccus.html

Current data on cloud, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure and temperature. Updated hourly. (Sometimes loads slowly.)

http://www.ems.psu.edu/wx/radsearch.html

On this page you enter the latitude and longitude for a given piece of ocean, and it will return to you all of the offshore observations within a specified diameter. An excellent source for the "real" weather.

http://www.ems.psu.edu/wx/userobs.html

Gateway to find archived and current observation data, primarily land-based, but also some offshore and island areas.

http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/ccworld.html

An interesting site via NOAA where you can select a country from around the world and download the current conditions. Loads slow.

http://www.nwsla.noaa.gov/marine.html

Links to buoys, marine observations, ship reports and marine forecast charts (emphasis on California but other data from around the world).

https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/mywxmap/index.jsp (New)

Fascinating military weather link. Gives you access to a variety of models, geographic areas, and weather products (surface, 500 and 300mb). Even does animations. Requires a fast connection as the files are rather large.

http://theyr.net/cg/cny/I184570/F=js*NA (New)

Commercial link with emphasis on European and Scandinavian weather. Easy access to temperature, cloud, precipitation, and wind on regional and country/city specific basis.

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http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/sat-bin/tropics.cgi

Best site we've found for satellite images from tropics and high latitudes. Covers the entire world.

The Ultimate NASA satellite image center. Easiest access to visible, infra red, and water vapor satellite images from around the world. This is the URL to visit first for this valuable data - especially the water vapor images (for more data on the use of water vapor images with forecasting see Mariner's Weather Handbook).

http://home.planet.nl/~renehart/home2.html (New)

http://vortex.plymouth.edu/

A really good general interst site with lots of satellite image movies, and weather foreecast/reporting from the US via an interactive map.

http://www.meto.gov.uk/

Home page for UK Met Service.

http://www.metservice.co.nz

Home page for New Zealand Met Service.

http://www.westwind.ch (New)

European Weather Links - various models, soundings, and forecasts.

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http://www.goflow.com

Tidal Current models for a number of locations. Integrates with various forms of racing software. An interesting tool to help you get where you're going with the most efficient course.

http://www.co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/tide_pred.html

Great resource for up to date tidal current predictions for around the US.

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ (New)

NOAA's National Ice Center.

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http://www.csu.edu.au/weather