Weather Radio Robots...
 

Harry Krause wrote:
...should be shot.

Went out yesterday with three buddies, soon as we cleared the jetty, a
strong north wind blew up. A few minutes later, we were rocking and
rolling in breaking four to six footers. Took one over the bow, the
first time ever in the Parker. Water rolled right up to the pilot house
bow windows, and up and over the cabin top. Scared the crap out of the
two guys in the cockpit. Wish I had that on instant replay!

While all this was going on, the WX robot was telling us of one to two
footers in our area.

Right.

Do you have a barometer aboard YoHo?

One easy was to know, prior to leaving the dock, whether the weather
bot is is full of
schip is to compare the barometer reading in the bot's report with a
local observation.
The bot's report may be up to four hours old, or the barometer report
may be from 40 miles away. In either case, if your barometric reading
is substantially lower than that reported by the bot there's no reason
to expect the same type of weather the bot is describing.

A useful portion of the broadcast in the PNW is the "Ocean Buoy
Reports". Our lousy weather normally comes in from the Pacific, and by
keeping track of conditions at various distances from shore it's also
easy to become aware of deteriorating conditions
before the official 5-second synopsis changes from "Winds 5-15" to
"Small Craft Advisories".

Weather Radio Robots...
 

Harry Krause wrote:

Yes, well, the problem wasn't in knowing before we left the dock, but
that while we were "out in it," the WX robot was telling us how nice it
was, and continued to tell us how nice it was all the hours we were out.

Understood.

Because you reported:

"soon as we cleared the jetty, a
strong north wind blew up. A few minutes later, we were rocking and
rolling in breaking four to six footers."

I thought my comment about comparing your local barometer to the
weather robot to see if you could expect the conditions the robot was
reporting was probably sound.

In any event, weather is always interesting because it is only
"somewhat" predictible.