What's up with the forecasts???????

akelly__ · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 1

Hey everyone - Tom mentioned the isobar forecast as the best tool for gauging the cape - when I click into this in the nav bar I only get numeric readings. What am I missing?

Thanks
Sean

cosmicharlie · Joined: 06 Oct 2015 Posts: 0

Wind.Man · Joined: 12 May 2001 Posts: 39

I have never posted in this forum, but I can not agree more with what's being said here. I sent Matt an email regarding the subject. Case in point - forecast for Cape Cod - Sat, Jun 23 - forecast was for nw winds in the moring with a switch to sw. sw winds were to build into upper-teens, low twenties in the evening hours (around 3-4pm acoording to forecast). The wind never switched. Of course there was NO 11:30 update to state that the switch was delayed or not going to happen.

The best part, however, was in the 6pm forecast for Sun, June 24. IN this forecast, Matt called for the winds to again switch from NW to SW. He states in this forecast that "the switch should occur earlier than Saturday". Are you kidding? Not only did they not update Saturdays forecast, but they obviously were not even paying attention as the switch never happened.

What am I paying for? The only reliable thing on this site is the meter readings (and even those are 3-4mph high). I find the whole thing frustrating.

alex177 · Joined: 04 May 2002 Posts: 36

Speaking about meter/sensor readings. Last Friday at 6pm, the sensor at Pleasure Bay showed 20NW when the water in the bay was like a mirror (see the image). One hour later, when the wind picked up (I was planing on 5.7) the sensor still showed 20NW. Go figure...

tom_eberhard · Joined: 04 May 2000 Posts: 25

mattman · Joined: 20 Jun 2000 Posts: 92

I see Wind Man posted here as well as used the forecast feedback link on the forecasts. I wish all of you would use that feedback link as we truly crave what you have to say. I know it says CONSTRUCTIVE feedback on the link which simply means we don't want a bunch of "you guys suck" statements... instead let us know where we missed and how we can do better and do it ASAP while the weather setup is still fresh in our minds.

Here is the response I sent to him:

<name deleted>,

That was truly a challenging day. I thank you for taking the time to give
us feedback. Indeed I did not get the forecast correct for Cape Cod in
the afternoon and for that I apologize. I special updated many other
regions that day but given the trends at Nantucket and Horseshoe Shoal I was
confident that the winds would fill in as I hoped they would. For that
reason, I didn't special update Cape Cod as I truly thought (even at 4pm) it
was still going to come on. In fact I was so sure that I referenced it in
my 6pm forecast. Hindsight...probably not a good idea.

You will note that in my forecast text I did say that the high confidence was on the morning NW flow and the low confidence was on the afternoon SW.
I said that so people might not make a long drive based on a low confidence forecast but placing the numbers in the tables was probably not a good call on my part.

I am a windsurfer too and sometimes I find myself trying to look for wind and forecasting more optimistically when truly I need to divorce myself and tell it like it is. Perhaps I was a little too eager on Saturday.
However, my forecast for Sunday seems to have been spot on. In many
respects it was the learning from Saturday that made Sunday's forecasts possible. Thanks to your and other's input we knew that we needed to pay more attention.

I hope you will continue to use our service and I'm sorry you feel you have had a bad run with us. NOAA is good at what they do and that is public safety. As we try to be more precise, which is what windsurfers want, sometimes that precision can come back to bite us as it did on Saturday.
For NOAA, they can just broad brush the region with a single number because they don't care about precision.

Again, thanks for taking the time to give us your thoughts.

Cheers,
Matt

dcharlton · Joined: 24 Apr 2002 Posts: 414

Matt,

You were spot on Sunday and to my benefit, I got a great session in at Kalmus. Thank you.

I will try and incorporate my feedback to the specific forecast feedback loop you mentioned earlier.

I didn't mean for my post to be "you guys suck" but I was pretty frustrated with both the 3 week combination of no wind with forecasts that looked doable. There was probably a little "kill the messenger" sentiment from my post and I apologize if I was overly harsh. I've gotten a lot out of your service for the last 5 years and will continue to use you.

PS: I am playing half day hookey tomorrow so all bets are off if I get skunked tomorrow Wink

DC

cosmicharlie · Joined: 06 Oct 2015 Posts: 0

The forecasts have been good the last few days for Cape Cod. I find that if they miss, the forecasters will be a little conservative the next time.

Wind.Man · Joined: 12 May 2001 Posts: 39

Wanted to post and thank Matt for taking the time to discuss this issue with all of us. I have had the opportunity to meet Matt at the beach once, and he is a very nice guy. I know everyone at iwindsurf is trying to do the best forecasts they can. I think we've all gotten skunked and frustrated at some point - when it happens a few days in a row, I think frustration can get the best of us. Forecast has been spot on this week. Matt seems to really care about getting the forecast right, and for that, I thank him.

jkrouwer · Joined: 10 Apr 2000 Posts: 20

Matt,

You said -

"I special updated many other regions that day but given the trends at Nantucket and Horseshoe Shoal I was confident that the winds would fill in as I hoped they would. For that reason, I didn't special update Cape Cod as I truly thought (even at 4pm) it was still going to come on."

This is precisely why you should have made a special update forecast. If things don't seem to be going well, but you're still confident, people would like to know that. To me, no special update means either no change OR no one's looking. I posted before an example of a forecast for little wind, it became windy, there was never a special update.

Someone suggested to attach a confidence level to every forecast and update. That's a great idea.