Weather Forecasting

Weather forecasting has come along way in recent years. Forecasts are created using mathematical models that keep getting better with each generation of meteorologists. The forecasts predict what the weather conditions will be anywhere in the world and are offered free to download as a grid for an area of interest. Software tools make it easy to collect and evaluate that data.

Imagine what the ideal tool for a trip like this would look like. It would be an app on your iPad or phone that displays a map of the Pacific Ocean and creates an ideal path through the weather. We don't want to navigate through weather that's too stormy or too calm. We want wind at an angle, not on the bow or the stern. We want the tool to have offshore access to the weather data it needs.

That's essentially what we have. If we tell the app the coordinates of the area of interest, it will download by satellite a grid of weather data over that area. If we provide start and stop points and the time of departure, it will calculate the optimum path through the weather that was downloaded.

As we advance the time in the app we can watch the weather evolve and see our boat icon follow its path through that weather. It's useful to see the wind speed and direction at every point on our path. With weather systems and boat moving independently, it helps establish exactly where we'll be with respect to a system as we proceed.

Of course the result is only as good as the forecast and the expected response of the boat. Keeping track of the boat's performance will help us fine tune it's parameters in the software. Updating the forecast periodically will give us an updated path and a sense of how chaotic or stable the forecasts are. Stable forecasts give us confidence that they're accurate forecasts.

This ability to download weather data at sea by satellite and use that data to create computer generated routes on an iPad wasn't available when I started the Quijote South Pacific Semi-circumnavigation effort. It's one of those areas that has evolved, forcing us to evolve along with it to keep up with the technology.

To give you a sense of how quickly the technology has improved, Quijote was built in 2007 and was originally fitted with an integrated weather fax for downloading weather forecasts and charts.