www.iFourWinns.com

I wanted to get an idea of what the weather was going to be this weekend and I was checking out Weather Underground, http://www.wunderground.com/ it does a decent job with the wind speeds and I do like that it works on my blackberry. Has anybody set up the Sirius Marine Weather? I usually boat close to my home port and strictly on the Chesapeake and keep and ear out for the weather on the VHF, if it looks threatening. What does everybody else use?

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2004 268 Vista "Satisfy My Sol"

NOAA is the only way to go. We are fortunate enough to have a radar station in our town.

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Guns kill people like spoons make people fat.
2007 Horizon 190 Gxi
97 Pathfinder SE 4x4
73 International Scout II

I'm not a big fan of the Sirius weather channel. Not very helpful when you're sitting in a cove watching clouds approaching quickly and trying to figure out whether it is a "ride it out" cloudburst or an F5 tornado heading your way. You turn it on and they're reporting absolutely stunning and relevant weather info like, "In Phoenix today it is going to be a HOT one. Expect it to be dry, sunny, and temps to be over 100 degrees."

"Oh, you think so Doctor?"

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Paul
2007 Four Winns Horizon 220
Mercruiser 350 Mag MPI w/ Bravo III Drive
2004 Ford Explorer Limited (V8-AWD)
Pomme de Terre Lake (Southwest Missouri)

EyeSight

Our weather changes in a blink. Our reports for the most part are useful information such as:

Today - mostly daylight with increasing chances of dark towards evening. This evening will be mostly dark, gradually clearing by morning with more some more light. During the day expect cloudy with sunny periods and slight chance of rain.

Doesn't change much more than that.

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2008 Four Winns 210 5.7 GI/SX
2007 GMC Sierra 2500 Crew
1966 Fed-Up Wife

NOAA - Quick, to the point, accessible from any of the several weather capable radios I always have with me.

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Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

NOAA's website: http://www.weather.gov/

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Previously:
2008 V358/Volvo 5.7 GXi Inboards

Whichever isn't forecasting rain for the days I want to go out. Between the news, paper, and wunderground and weather.com majority rules, but they're all usually different .

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-Rob.


Current boat: 2011 Yamaha AR210
Previous boat: 1998 Horizon RX 4.3GL SX

That's not the satellite weather service. You're just listening to audio, right? And it is nearly useless, I'd agree.

I'm thinking the service he's talking about is the one that interfaces to a chartplotter. I have it in our 348, connected to an E-80 and it's been great having it. It has quite a lot more useful data than most web-based sites. That and it's usable from the helm in ALL conditions. That and you can suspend the service for up to 6 months, so you need only pay for it when your season is active (assuming you're in an area that has an off-season, of course). I suspend mine from Nov to April. At home, and ocassionally on the boat, I usually check wunderground.com. They're newest radar loops are getting pretty nice, feature-wise.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

We use The Weather Channel and NOAA:

http://www.weather.com Have you noticed that they have a "boat & beach" forcast? It's under "Sports & Recreation" at the top of the page.

http://www.weather.gov (NOAA) we use the forcasts out of Portland/Gray, ME and Boston if going to the ocean (vs Lk Winni or other inland activity).

Never hurts to call the Harbor Master or one of the marinas to find out whats really going on near and off-shore.

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Gordon Arnold
New Hampshire

2003 268 Vista ..................................................................Prior: 97 245 Sundowner

[quote="M3eater"]We use The Weather Channel and NOAA:

http://www.weather.com Have you noticed that they have a "boat & beach" forcast? It's under "Sports & Recreation" at the top of the page.quote]

Yeah I just noticed that today. Of course when you live in the "land of OZ" and you type in your zip code a little message that pops up and say's, "where are you?? Is there water there" I guess you big city folks have an advantage there.

Better yet here in Kansas if we call the local marina we don't exactly have a harbor master. More of a "pot" master coming off the friday night high wondering why everybody has to bother him on a Saturday afternoon when reasonable people are sleeping.

I'm a weather.com guy but will check out the others from the blackberry. We've had a 20-40% chance for Thunderstorms for the past 20 days. Rained one of them. I'm pretty much counting on seeing big clouds, thunder and leaving the lake. The best part is the one day it did rain, the weather report said we still had a 40% chance for rain. I'm guessing that meant there was a 60% chance for it to stop.

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2008 Four Winns 224 Funship 5.0 GXI/DP Black w/ Tower
2007 GMC Crew Cab Short Bed / Bose Ed.
2007 Fourwinns H180 (SOLD)

"There are no stupid questions, only stupid people"

Just one of the things that makes Kansas boating hard. There's always a chance of thunderstorms; if you wait until the chance is gone, you'll never boat. On the other hand, when I was a kid we once got off Perry 5 minutes ahead of a tornado touchdown on the water. Not an experience I EVER want to repeat. I keep a very close eye on the sky and check NOAA if I have any reason to suspect weather coming in.

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Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

Another point to consider is understanding how weather reacts to local conditions. What might be a small bit of rain can boil up into a sudden squall when conditions are 'just right'. That's usually the biggest risk around here on the Bay. Just this past weekend a storm was marching across the land, maintaining a consistent size. But when it hit the shore line it pretty much tripled in size, extending north/south exactly following the shore. I'm imagine similar developments are possible on lakes too.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista