I agree with Rosalie, one has to look at more than one source to have any
confidence in a forecast and even then there willl always be some
uncertainty. I recall going from 1st to 2nd reef in a building NE breeze
few miles off Sandy Hook while the Mt. Holly NOAA forecast was still
predicting "5 to 10 and variable" conditions for that end of the Jersey
coast. At the "local conditions" part of the same broadcast they were also
reporting 18 gusting to 22 at Ambrose, so there was a total disconnect in
the info being sent out over the airwaves. These VHF reports can be
misleading due to the wide area of coverage and "other factors too numerous
to mention" but I'd hate to be without them. If one has access to the
internet the forcaster's "Area Forecast Discussion" link on NOAA websites is
*extremely* valuable in giving a good view of what the individual forecaster
is actually looking at when he or she distills a huge amount of information
from diffent sources and models down to the few words that are then sent out
to the public. There is always some, and sometimes a huge amount of
uncertainty implied in these laudably honest discussions -- but the official
public forecast seldom relects this except in very general terms.

Scott


"Rosalie B." wrote in message snip
When I do the weather for the Chesapeake using NOAA (which certainly
DOES apply to that area), I often find that their forecasts are wrong,
either in wind direction or wind intensity and sometimes both.

The thing that you have to do it to really understand what the
forecasts are based on, and that takes a bit of time. snip