Thanks to the Internet there's ever more weather information available to sailors. Serious offshore racers no longer put to sea without real time access to GRIB files, telling them not only what wind and barometric pressure are doing now, but also how they are likely to change in the hours and days ahead.
Such information is vital to cruising yachtsmen too, but until very recently it has been expensive to obtain, in terms of both software for interpretation and subscriptions for downloading.
Not any more thanks to www.grib.us - a new weather service which claims to have several advantages, the most attractive being the price - it's FREE!
It allows you to download high quality weather forecasts for anywhere in the world with complete control over the forecast length, time intervals etc (and so control over download costs, too) and then to view the data via Ugrib, its own free GRIB file viewer.
I was so intrigued when I received the press release that I went to the site to download it immediately. There was a slight glitch in the download process, as Ugrib needs the Microsoft .NET Framework, a software component that can be added to the Windows operating system.
The .NET Framework is intended to be used by most new applications created for the Windows platform, apparently, and will ship as standard with Windows Vista, which means that Ugrib software is future proof.
When my first attempt at downloading Ugrib failed, I found the computer was still trying to download Microsoft.NET, and as soon as it had done that, it was perfectly happy to get Ugrib at the second try.
GRIB.US says that Ugrib is part of a of new software family that utilises managed memory.
“This means that we do not share memory with other applications so there can never be a conflict. The Ugrib installer makes no entries to the Windows registry and does not put ANYTHING in your system folder. Uninstalling the Ugrib software and deleting the GRIB.US program folder will eliminate ALL traces.”
So in theory, there are no risks attached to downloading the program, and I was astonished how quickly I had it up and running. And although I am not the most computer literate person in the universe I found the user interface reassuringly intuitive, and was finding my way around straight away, without needing to refer to the comprehensive online help.
First of all you have to select the area you want forecasts for on a world map. This is a bit fiddly, but you can zoom in and out and pan to adjust your selection - or you can define it by entering lat and long coordinates.
You can then overlay the wind and pressure information for as small or large an area as you want.
The information is updated at six hourly intervals (at around 0515, 1115, 1715 and 2315 GMT)
and you get a seven-day forecast with a three-hour time steps. You also have the option of playing it as an animation, giving a clear picture of how winds are likely to change in speed and direction during your race or cruise.
Isobars are shown but not fronts, because Numerical Weather Prediction models do not produce data representing fronts, apparently. However, the software can display rain which helps to identify where the fronts are.
For the record, GRIB stands for Grid In Binary. It is the standard format used for the storage, transport and manipulation of gridded meteorological data, such as Numerical Weather Prediction model, output by the meteorological institutes of the world. It is the foundation of forecasts gathered from TV, radio and other websites.
GRIB.US allows the end-user to extract custom GRIB weather files tailored to individual needs, says the company: “The free Ugrib software means that you can look at weather data for anywhere in the world when you want to, where you want to. Best of all, this is all for free!”
There's still the matter of paying for internet access, which can be a bit expensive when connecting by mobile phone from a yacht, but if I can get it to work half as well from the boat as it works on my broadband connection at home, I will regard it as a bargain! And Ugrib is said to work well on a low-bandwidth connection.
The data comes from the US GFS (Global Forecast System) global weather model. It has a native resolution of 0.5 degrees so there is plenty of detail, even when you are only interested in a relatively small area.
“Whether blue water ocean cruising or coastal sailing, Ugrib provides the easiest possible method for getting weather forecasts. The GRIB files from Ugrib are also compatible with all navigation and routing programs. Whether competing in yacht races or planning cruises Ugrib is a must have tool for any nav station,” says GRIB.US.
Not surprisingly, they claim to have received “fantastic feedback from all of users to date.”
All you have to do to download Ugrib, and get GRIB forecasts, is to register at www.grib.us.
