The everlasting debate: Which site do you use for the wind forecast? I get asked so often which forecast service is the most applicable for El Médano. This has led me to make a short list of the forecast sites that we use in El Médano and has let me discover some additional wind forecast sites to decide upon the best one. I will be inspecting each in the style that sailingfast.co.uk has presented their list. I should add that I have only looked at the free versions of all these services. Since not all forecast sites are equally accurate for the same locations I have put them in sections describing their reach.

Worldwide Forecasts

WindGuru

Positive

• Very big network of forecast locations
• It gives the forecast for a week in advance
• It shows the average wind and gusts as well as their direction
• It gives the swell forecast
• It also shows the cloud covering and precipitation forecast
• Very clear color coding to differentiate high winds from low winds
• It provides a 3 star rating for the conditions (favoring high wind speeds)
• Has an app for IOS and Android

Negative

• Free service only gives 3 hourly forecasts (it isn’t clear if the paid version gets more detailed)

WindFinder

This one is very similar to WindGuru let’s go through the features:

Positive

• Very big network of forecast locations
• It gives the forecast for a week in advance
• It shows the average wind and gusts as well as their direction
• It gives the swell forecast
• It also shows the cloud covering and precipitation forecast
• Has a color and bar height coding to differentiate high winds from low winds
• Has an app for IOS and Android

Negative

• Same as with WindGuru

Wunderground

Positive

• NIce and clear color reference for wind speeds
• Hourly forecast

Negative

• No color coding for wind speeds
• No wave forecast
• Wind forecast is for average wind speed only, no gusts

 

Europe Wide Forecasts

Muchoviento

Positive

• Hourly forecast
• Clear bar chart in printout version showing evolution throughout the day

Negative

• Wind forecast only
• No gusts in the report
• Only has a handful of spots

 

This one has appeared in the last few years and is slowly expanding. The aspect that makes the difference in this forecasting site is that they calculate the wind based on the regional model rather than the global model that the others use. This results in a difference in the results. In El Médano for example, since we have the volcano El Teide close by, if the wind comes from exactly north, we get nothing. However, when it comes from north-east the wind accelerates and comes in about 4 knots faster than what WindGuru or WindFinder predict.

 

UK-wide Forecasts

Big Salty

Positive

• Wind and wave forecast
• Vast range of spots in the UK
• 3 point rating of the forecast

Negative

• Average wind speed only
• Difficult to read wind direction
• 3 hourly forecasts only

XC Weather

Positive

• Comprehensive map of UK
• Mouse-over shows forecast
• Very easy and intuitive to use
• Hourly forecast available

Negative

• Wind forecast only

Met Office

Positive

• Very clear presentation of forecast
• Average wind speeds and gusts
• Mouse hover reveals written description of forecast

Negative

• Wind forecast only
• Coastal forecast only
• Shows one day per screen

 

US-wide Forecast

NOAA Weather Service

Positive

• You can get very specific on your location
• Wind speeds are represented with good color maps
• You can also get broken down written report

Negative

• Having to look at the forecast while moving the mouse somewhere else on the screen is cumbersome as you have to keep looking from the mouse cursor to the map and then back to hover over the next time slot(mouse over refreshes the map for the feature you are highlighting)
• Wind speeds and wind gusts are separate maps making for more hassle
• Wind direction arrows are hard to read
• No list of wind speeds, gusts, etc.

 

Note that I have not talked about their accuracy but only about the features they provide. I hope to write an article on the accuracy in the future but that would require a bit more thorough research. Ultimately these are all computer calculated models which will have some margin of error. I recommend that you take the values for two or three sites and compare them to the actual wind for a month and making a good estimate for yourself how the forecast tends to result in real life. As I mentioned before, in El Médano we have become pretty sure that for north-east winds we must add around 4 knots to the forecast and that if the direction is north we will not be getting any wind despite the 30 knots on the north of the island.

Another thing you can do is learn to predict your own weather. To learn how to do that check out this online resource on meteorology.

If you have any resources you think that should be added in this list, please let me know in the comments and I will update it with my views on it.