VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

For those interested, Environment Canada were doing some updates to their model so that is why it hasn't been working for the last few weeks. It should be back now:
http://www.bigwavedave.ca/forecasts.php?page=9

It is now run 4 times per day so look for updates:
~4am, 10am, 4pm, 10pm covering a 24hr period (-6hrs) (similar to their marine forecast times at 00UTC, 06UTC, 12UTC and 18UTC). So the update today at 10am update covers the period 4am to 4am tomorrow.

The EC model#2 seems to be reasonably accurate and gives a low end estimate of the winds where the UofW tends on the high end...sometimes:
http://www.bigwavedave.ca/latest.php?site=4

More reading here:
http://dd.meteo.gc.ca/doc/genots/2014/1 ... 11___00921
http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/c ... rdps_4.0.0
http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/c ... 1118_e.pdf

To access the wind speed plots, there are some good instructions given here:
http://pointrobertsyachtclub.com/index. ... t?Itemid=0

Yayyy, thanks for getting back up and running Dave.

I find the combination of Pred1's optimism and Pred2's pessimism quite helpful...usually somewhere in the middle lies the truth. Though also find for some spots and conditions that one model or the other seems to be more on top of things.

In the end, the only 100% certain forecast is to go to the beach and see what's what. But for the desk chair quarterbacks, these models are gold!

Thanks Dave

Thank Dave!

Thanks Dave! Miss you on the beach, or on the water. Kinda wish you still windsurfed

any chance of having the display rotate, so that the 4pm update shows 4pm to 4pm instead of 10am to 10am? Having the "daylight tomorrow" forecast at 4pm would be very nice. Please and thank you! (That much [output formatting] I could probably do if you wanted help.) -Tom

tbrown wrote:Having the "daylight tomorrow" forecast at 4pm would be very nice.

Indeed it would, but the model doesn't cover that time period. It covers -6hrs (hindcast) from the current time for 24hrs. To explain better:

4am update covers 10pm previous day to 10pm current day
10am update covers 4am current day to 4am following day
4pm update covers 10am current day to 10am following day
10pm update covers 4pm current day to 4pm following day

Admittedly the 4pm isn't too useful. You will just have to stay up until 10pm

I can ask EC if they plan to extend the model range. Even by 6hrs would help. The great thing about this model is that I have access to the model data and can pick out any location easily, unlike the UofW model where I'm reading points from the colour maps.