Weather and Sea State Info...

Dee and Lee Anderson, Jack Robert 37VT17, life long "river rats," who just cruised from Minnesota to Mobile, are on the cusp of their first blue water cruise.  Below is a copy of the note I sent them after they asked for advice on weather window timing.

Nellie D. 37VT63's go to site for weather information is passageweather.com. Over the last thirteen years, from Alaska to the Bahamas and on the Great Loop, it kept us out of trouble.



Passage Weather offers all sorts of data but the most important thing for a comfortable trip is the sea state--the graphic titled "Wave Height (m) and direction".

Waves less than 0.5m mean you'll get a very, very comfortable ride.



The chart above predicts perfect big bend weather tommow at 3 UTC, or +4 hrs for CST equals 7am your time. The predominate wave pattern, what little there is of it, is mostly from the southeast or east.



By mousing on the "next" button a bunch of times you can watch what the sea state does over time. In this case the weather window closes fast. By Friday at 4 pm you'd have beam seas up to six feet.

In closing, if you foray out in seas of 0.5m or less, that are predicted to stay that way for more than the duration of your trip, you'll be happy campers.

Dave Howell
Nellie D. 37VT63