Weather is one of the most important factors affecting a sailor's performance on water although it can sometimes be the most overlooked. By far, the most comprehensive source for weather is the National Weather Service online reachable at www.nws.noaa.gov. If this address has changed, you simply search for National Weather Service, will reveal of the new location. The National Weather Service is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which leads to its common nick name among sailors, NOAA.
NOAA can give you satellite and radar maps localized to your zip code along with current and forecasted weather, barometric pressure, dew point, wind chill, wind speed and more. The National Weather Service provides weather information to most of the other weather sources, so if you can go to NOAA by all means do. In addition to NOAA, there are sources that create weather forecast, specially tailored for sailors. These include relevant national weather, local tide and current information and local wind and weather conditions. These services are easily found on the internet. With all of this easily available weather information, why should the sailor be concerned with weather theory? To anyone, who has been caught in rain on a day that was forecasted clear, this is obvious. Weather isn't an exact science. Thunderheads can form in mere hours and the skipper that can recognize the early warning signs will be better able to cope with the worst weather conditions.
Entire books have been written on the subject but here are some rules we've found. When a cold front collides with a warm front or with another cold front, a storm is produced. The darker a cloud, generally the more dangerous it is. This 1.50 may be as ancient as the sea but it still holds true today. Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.
A barometer is a device for measuring air pressure while the actual reading is unlikely to tell you anything about the weather you didn't already know. The movement of a barometer can indicate changes in the weather. In general, a rising barometer means improving weather while a falling barometer means worsening weather. The majority of the wind that you will encounter while sailing will not be constant, unidirectional wind, i.e., the wind will not always come from the same exact direction with the same exact intensity. Three 2.30 periods of increased wind intensity are called puffs, periods of decreased wind are called lulls and periods of no wind are called calms or doldrums. While lulls, calms and doldrums are boring and frustrating, puffs are opportunities to cover more ground if you can properly harness the additional power of the wind. Specific instructions for dealing with puffs will be covered later but first you must learn to see them by observing their effect on the surface of the water you are sailing on.
When wind passes across the water, it creates waves. These waves may be 30 foot tall mountains or entire ripples, but they reveal the presence, direction and intensity of the wind. These waves create shadows on the water and once you have learned to look for them, they are easy to spot. When you see a dark patch heading across the surface of the water in the direction the wind is blowing, that's a puff. If possible, maneuver your boat to take advantage of it. A puff increases the true wind, therefore when you had enough wind, this will rotate the apparent wind around toward the stern. So, when you had enough wind, a puff will let you point closer to the wind, or sail faster on the same course. So, if you can maneuver into a puff, you can cover more distance than before. When you are heading downward, a puff will push you a little faster, so you can fall off. In a competition catching a puff can give you a serious advantage over your competitors. So, always be on the look out for puffs.
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