Most reliable weather tools

M

mimiagaj

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Jul 4, 2024
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Hi everyone. I’m a later‑in‑life cruiser and recent R27 owner, and I’d love to hear what weather tools you all trust the most. I’m bouncing between PredictWind, Windy, NOAA charts, and Savvy Navvy as I plan a trip up to the San Juans.
What I haven’t found is one app that gives wind, gusts, wave height/period, and tidal flow in a single snapshot. Does such a thing exist, or is it always a mix‑and‑match approach? I would greatly appreciate any input!
 
I've got AI (Claude) working with an MCP server to access NOAA directly. Still playing with this...

My first task was make figuring out when I need to launch at Dagmars to get through Deception. I have some rules set. Less than 4 knots of current at Deception. I need +1.5 tide to launch at Dagmars. I need at least a -1.5 foot tide to go down the Snohomish River. It's 130 minutes from Deception to the dock at Dagmars... I wrote a system prompt to articulate all this, and format the output in a concise 1 pager.

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I use ventusky.com
Most people never heard of it or aren't willing to try it. I think it is great. It even has fog.
 
Windy primarily although I also like Predict Wind. Another useful app is NOAA Buoy Reports, for the actual wave heights and periods.
 
I use "SAIL FLOW" for wind, tide times, But the best is to "look out the window".
 
Windy works nice for me, but we have made the trip many times now and know what to expect in different areas with just the wind forecast.
 
Here in New England we use several of the already mentioned apps. Like Martin, our primary apps are Windy and AyeTides. However, we also use PredictWind and multiple weather apps.

Our cruising grounds are mostly inshore coastal areas which sometimes get absorbed in more broad coverage. Hence, the multiple apps.

That being said, we have found Windy to be acceptably reliable given its multiple weather models. The AyeTides app has been a huge resource with its multiple data sets.
 
I've been experimenting with Oceanconnect.ca and Current Atlas for currents in the San Juans and Canada. Seem to be accurate.
 
Navionics map display shows currents. Click on the current arrows and you can get not only the values at the moment but also the last few hours and a slider bar that allows you to see the forecast for the next 48 hours

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Submariner said:
I've got AI (Claude) working with an MCP server to access NOAA directly. Still playing with this...
Click to expand...

Pretty cool stuff. Did you write the MCP gateway?
 
gregc said:
Pretty cool stuff. Did you write the MCP gateway?
Click to expand...

Kind of. I did what Claude told me to do. It wrote the code and told me how to apply it. Hosted it up on Cloudflare, free account.
 
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