The impressiveness of the above, bigger here, was no doubt heightened by how BIG the weather was around Boston today. I was supposed to go boating on a 44’ Sea Ray but even a few hours tied up in a very protected marina felt heroic given the volume of wind and rain. The project was interesting and I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, but today I’ll just show you the wild and crazy phone one of the guys pulled out. That is the Weather Channel playing on that Verizon XV6700 and it looked and sounded quite good. I was tickled a few weeks ago just to see just static Nexrad on a phone; this TV feed included not just animated radar and sat imagery but a live forecaster (as long as high speed EvDO is available). And it’s source was not some Web site but rather the owner’s own home TV setup which is equipped with a Slingbox, able to serve whatever channels he already pays for out to the Web where he can watch them even when he’s not home, even when he’s rolling around on a boat. The software is SlingPlayer Mobile and apparently it can even control a Tivo type recorder. So beyond live Weather Channel are a lot of other intriguing possibilities.
I suppose it was predictable, but it’s still amazing. The Garmin 478 above has all the XM Weather and Audio abilities that distinquished the 376C, and it comes loaded with all U.S. charts and all U.S. and Canada road maps. It’s fast too, even the ‘Find’ command is not slowed up by what must be a zillion POIs, nav aids, intersections, etc. stored somewhere in that little casing (and hence I’d bet that Garmin has sped up Find in the first all-U.S.-charts 192C I tested last summer).
Not that the 478 is perfect, even if there is nothing like it out there. For instance, these are the new G2 charts, but apparently the 478 will not be able to show the vaunted perspective view. I do gather from the spec page that it will show the photos available on G2 cards, and the screen above (bigger here) does look richer than regular BlueCharts. But, as good as this screen is, I find myself wanting to plug the 478 into a bigger monitor, maybe use a wireless keyboard and mouse with it too. The unit lets you use an expensive XM subscription anywhere you go but in some of those places, like a boat, you may want to expand the system. Just a thought, probably inspired by how rapidly this unit has evolved over the years.
I should also add that the Panbo reader who recently complained about the “Surface Wind” coming from XM to this machine was right; it’s old. He tells me that Garmin has acknowledged the problem and is working on it, but I also noticed this time around that you don’t get predicted wind and wave model data, something the new Sirius Marine Weather is very good at.
Garmin also announced a new pair of radar scanners this week, this time inside a smaller, 24” diameter casing, and with more emphasis on the digital processing going on in there. Finally, though Garmin hasn’t yet promoted it, many of its new plotters apparently do support AIS. The 478 is not one of them but I think I’ll soon get the chance to try it on a 3210.
I would have posted earlier today, except that fooling with this Garmin 376C vividly reminded me (above, and bigger here) that the spell of dry, sunny weather was about to end. So I spent some hours winterizing the fleet, all the while watching the clouds thicken up from below and above. I could also see an animation of all that rain moving across New York state, plus the lightning strikes, the frontal lines, pressure gradients, wind predictions, buoy reports, etc. etc. It is phenomenal how well you can see all this info on the 376’s little screen. The display itself is exceptionally bright and detailed, and Garmin has also done a good job at letting you view the weather data mixed together or one element at a time. And, get this, I was also listening to XM radio (below). I’ve been trying the 376C intermittently over the last month or so, and am very, very impressed. It really makes sense in terms of carrying your XM weather and audio subscriptions with you on land or sea. The only con I can think of is that BlueCharts have gotten pretty expensive relative to the competition, but maybe that will change.
The Garmin 276C was one of my 5 Sail magazine “editor’s picks” for innovative, important marine electronics introduced last year. I’m working on my 2005 picks right now, and the 376C is definitely a contender. If you have suggestions for other hardware or software that should be on the list, please let me know.
Monday, 9:00 am: on Friday afternoon the organizers of the Fort Lauderdale show postponed the opening from Thursday to Saturday, but I’m beginning to wonder if it will happen at all. As you can kind of make out in the radar shot above, Lauderdale is right now experiencing the worst portion of the storm’s eye wall. SSE gusts in Miami have hit 95 knots, and haven’t started to taper off yet. Wilma is moving fast, so South Florida will soon be able to assess how badly it got hammered. But even in good conditions the amount of boat handling, tent building, etc. that goes in this show is amazing. Of course the show is trivial compared to other problems Wilma is causing.
Argh! I haven’t gotten too exercised about Senator Rick Santorum’s bill to limit NOAA’s distribution of weather forecasts because I thought it simply too ridiculous to pass, but yesterday I came across this steaming pile of pure double speak. “Free the Weather” is a disinformation campaign run by CWSA—a trade association for the commercial weather industry—meant to support Santorum’s bill. The big lie is that NOAA’s National Weather Service is currently not required to dispense weather to the public, and has sometimes been tardy. That’s like arguing that your local fire department is not legally obliged to fight fires. So what?…that’s what they do. In fact NOAA does an amazing job of distributing data and forecasts both to the public and all the commercial interests that want to add value to it. And never mind that Santorum’s bill restricts distribution to "a set of data portals designed for volume access by commercial providers." Check out FreeTheWeather.org and see if it makes any sense to you. (For instance, they post an interesting series from the Miami Herald about frustrations at the Hurricane Center, but does they support the Santorum bill at all?) You might get mad, and you might want to contact your Senators and ask them to free S. 786 from its misery.
PS One of the neat things NOAA does, I think, is to give the public access to the hurricane forecaster’s discussion notes. It’s geeky stuff, but today you can learn that some of the computer models of wicked Wilma have her coming closer to New England than the current 5 prediction track shows. Damn!
Hurricane Katrina whacked south Florida fairly hard yesterday and now it looks likely that she’ll power up and smack the northwest section of the state early next week. Per usual, there’s an extraordinary amount of data and valuable prediction information at the National Hurricane Center’s web site. Hurricanes are truly meteorological loose cannon, but it is amazing how far our ability to forecast them has advanced. I got to tour the NHC facility in Miami in early 2004 and was bowled over by the high levels of technology, data i/o, and brain power. That was the year that NHC’s back testing program indicated that their forecasting was good enough to begin issuing 5 day track predictions, which have no doubt saved lives and property since. By contrast, observe above how hurricane warnings were delivered to sponge boats off St. Pete, Florida, in 1938 (from NOAA’s online photo library).
Now, no idiot U.S. Senator (carrying water for a few private weather companies) is going to stop NOAA from distributing hurricane information, but, as you likely know, Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania does have a bill in process that might severely limit its ability to share less critical information. BoatU.S. has just posted a good editorial on the issue. Following one of its links, I found and used an easy e-mail form to register opposition to the bill with my senators. Why don’t you?
Update, 8/28: Naturally I’m curious if Katrina could reach Maine with any force, and I now see that the NHC has a new series of ‘experimental’ wind graphics that are quite valuable. This one shows me that the models now predict a 5–10% probability of over 50 knot winds on Thursday. Hmmmmm. Note that it can be animated if you click on ‘loop’.
If you have a fast Internet connection, you also have a zillion good weather resources at hand. I wouldn’t dare to say which are best. But one I’ve gravitated to over the years—even paid a tiny subscription fee to—is the Weather Underground. I think it started as a university science project, which may account for the name referencing a really desperate and counter productive 60’s political movement. Whatever, it’s great. The screen shot at right (bigger here) shows how you can zoom in on a NEXRAD radar animation which you can also customize to your taste. Wunderground now even identifies storm cells, which I’d only seen before on the high end satellite products from XM and The Weather Channel Marine. But it was interesting yesterday when that cell shown over Penobscot Bay sprung up right over my house. 12 minutes earlier it didn’t show on NEXRAD at all. In other words even the fanciest tools couldn’t have kept you out of the way. The front did clear the air though, making for a great first day of the Maine Boats & Harbors show in Rockland, which is where I’m headed. Have a wonderful weekend!
I was a little stunned this morning to discover two very interesting and ambitious marine weather services that seem to have sprung up fully formed, but without my knowledge! SailFlow and FishWeather are sister services, each offering tailored weather products either graphically via the Web or a WAP enabled cell phone (there are lots), or via a regular voice call. The services boast their own weather sensors covering a lot of the U.S. coastline, plus their own meteorologists and even computer modeling programs (in addition to public resources, of course). It turns out that both are the spawn of WeatherFlow, a company which has spent 15 years building a “national coastal mesonet with a presence in over 20 states…The WeatherFlow staff of engineers, meteorologists, and IT professionals are dedicated to increasing the understanding of the complex nature of climate within the coastal zone.” I intend to try out at least each service’s free month trial Web subscription. By the way, Eli of EliBoat—whom I had the pleasure of meeting last week—has been using WSI live satellite weather, which is a whole other animal than SailFlow. He posted some comments yesterday.
I missed the fact that WSI, the company behind Weather Channel Marine, inked a deal with Sirius Satellite Radio in March. "Our goal is to offer the gold standard of marine services”. This is good news, as it should heat up the competition between WSI’s service, now only available on PCs (including Maptech i3) via a single satellite, and the XM Marine Weather that can be had either on a PC or on Garmin network plotters. I’ve been watching the “live” weather category closely, and have tried at least the early PC and Garmin products, and was very impressed with how much detailed and macro weather sense I could get easily. In fact—odd timing—I was trying out a pretty good GRIB weather tool last night, but without the Nexrad radar and frontal line predictions, I missed the wet squall line that’s passing through here this morning! Above, and bigger here, is part of an old Weather Channel Marine screen that just suggests how you can see animated Nexrad combined with current and forecast fronts…very effective. A face off between giants Sirius and XM as providers of top notch U.S. coastal marine weather should lower subscription and hardware costs, open up new platforms, and really make boaters aware of this valuable service.
Yike! Above is the OPC’s prediction for 8 pm tomorrow night, my time. Today, 20 of the mightiest sailing yachts on the planet will set off from New York in a Transatlantic Challenge meant to celebrate, and smash, the 12 day, 4 hour race record set by Charlie Barr 100 years ago (also well explained by Josh Adams here). Somewhere the famously hard-driving skipper may be chuckling. If I’d been invited to join the fascinating mix of swells, enthusiasts, and pros (some apparently obnoxious) making the crossing, I’d be feeling a bit like a squirrel in front of a truck. That low looks like a lot more weather than is normal this time of year. I’ll bet the onboard weather guys and routers like Commander’s are quite focused right now. It seems like communications and forecasting technology will play a big role in whether these boats get a sleigh ride or a pounding. I’ll be following the race with interest this week (and hoping to learn more about the electronics used).
Monday, 11 am update: the Grand Prix boats have headed way south and are now making 18 knots. Meanwhile the big low may stall right over Cape Cod, which is where I was supposed to go boating later this week. Drat!
Tuesday, 12 am update: the gale warnings here in Maine and on the Cape have been upgraded to storm warnings, NE gusts up to 50k tonight, but it’s still not clear how the racers will fare, though the ones who went way south are looking pretty smart right now.
If you have a fast Internet connection, you also have a zillion good weather resources at hand. I wouldn’t dare to say which are best. But one I’ve gravitated to over the years—even paid a tiny subscription fee to—is the Weather 
I was a little stunned this morning to discover two very interesting and ambitious marine weather services that seem to have sprung up fully formed, but without my knowledge! 
