Weather Resources for the Pacific Northwest

If you have even a passing interesting in data, models, and visualizations you can’t beat modern day weather forecasting. The amount of data available is astonishing and the number of high resolution models in the US is quite remarkable - most of them “free” from NOAA. There is even good commentary available. But it can be hard to find it all.

My interest really started with wanting to understand wind forecasts for Puget Sound. I wanted to get a sense of when it would be a good day to sail, what the actual wind out there is, and where we might spend the evening. As I learned about the various wind forecasts, I started to uncover lots of different visualizations and models that showed interesting nuances.

Modern weather apps do a great job of simplifying down the forecasts and showing lots of data - but behind the scenes there a lot of depth you can go into. Most of these apps are showing a “forecast” - a sophisticated guess - of what the conditions will be. They are getting these predictions from any of a number of models. These models take data from a wide variety of sensors and attempt to predict the future - temperature, wind speed and direction, rain, and much more. Some models predict out he next 7 days, others just focus on the next 18 hours.

Needless to say, there is lots you dive into. Rather than go to deep into it today, I just wanted to share my most commonly used weather websites.

• Cliff Mass - A Professor at the University of Washington that posts every couple of days about interesting weather activity around the area.
• Windy - A very handy general purpose weather viewer that can show both forecasts and actuals (wind, temperature, rain fall, etc.) It is a great way to explore a lot of the data available with compelling visuals.
• Pivotal Weather - A rich source of weather data and models, which specializes in having a number of ways to look at and compare various models. You can compare how a model changes run-on-run or how to models view the world.
• PredictWind - The authoritative source of marine weather forecasts in my view. It has global models and regional models, and focuses on their implications for sailors. You can create routes based on weather and get detailed information about the conditions along the way. The have recently added high resolution current forecasts as well.
• Seattle office of the National Weather Service - Get a quick view of the current warnings and advisories posted in the ares.
• SailFlow - Extremely high resolution models available for popular sailing areas plus access to frequently updated real time wind speeds.

As I write this, it’s a rainy day in Seattle with a lot more to come in the next couple of days.