Official forecasts start Mar. 19 Socal Apr. 9 but for now...

[MOTOP]

Mike,
This is is excellent news, thank you for starting those early!

Can you please post a link to Bay Area forecast?
Following "Daily Briefing" link leads me to to sample forecast page.

[Windreamer]

Where are they? They are not on my daily briefing.

[gerritt]

I'm with PAmuddog on this one. Ya'll need to shut yer yaps and recognize what it would be like without iwindsurf to point you in the right direction. If you don't look at the forecasts, what are you doing on this thread? It's amazing to me how much complaints are heard about the $13.95/mo fees wasted when one of a few hundred sensors go down, or when Mike is off by 5 knots and you couldn't get yer fat ass off the beach on your 80 liter 5.0 high wind kit, when you could have simply looked up from your pager and at the actual water conditions, rigged your lite wind kit, and had a blast.

The point is, you are at a place with water and wind due to iwindsurf rather than sitting at home wondering if its worth the drive. One session gained or lost due to this site pays for the otherwise wasted gas and time, I would have spent on the hunt for my fix. Two sessions, and I'm ahead. A month's worth -- priceless. Us old fucks remember sitting at the beach listening to our radio shack weather boxes calling for 15-25 right were we were and watching mirror flat water for hours hoping the box was just a few hours off and if we stayed maybe it would happen. Now that was worth bitchin' about, but the good sessions kept us coming. We just chalked up a 33% skunk rate as part of the dues for admission.

Last year, I got skunked twice in 125 days. And those were days, I went knowing Mike and crew were not forecasting good conditions, but I wanted a session and the risk reward factor seemed to justify the drive.

Kook out...

[chibichibi]

false advertising? lucky we still got NOAA. looks to be jammin' NW winds on Tues and Wed.

[rpaillon]

Mike:
I know it's not your specialty and very difficult for anyone, but could you give us a long term forcast for the season? Could you break it up into monthly forecasts?

Rick

[sergem]

[Wind_Boarder]

To be fair to Mike, take another look at the title of this thread. March 19 was the earliest that the forecasts were due to start. I think he just meant to say that the SoCal forecasts would be moved back from April 9 date to the same starting weekend.

After writing this reply, I found Mike's explanation in another thread. Check it out.

Forecasting is still voodoo magic to me and I also second the kudos to Mike for doing such a great job even though he doesn't sail or live in our area.

For all the amateur forecasters out there, I think what would be constructive would be to send detailed feedback through the feedback link on the forecast page for what forecasts worked well and what forecasts were off and why. Hopefully this would help tune their model predictions.

Alak.

[gerritt]

[human_catapult]

I guess I'll take an unpopular route and sympathize with Derek's sarcastic frustration.

I agree with Gerritt and others that iwindsurf has added a HUGE convenience to my life and helped me catch a lot more sessions than I probably would otherwise. That said, they are running a business and we are customers who pay them money and expect the service to live up to some level of uptime/consistency/forecasting/accuracy.

That said, the occasional chiding remark or "whining" as it was put, will hopefully help introduce a little pressure for them to deliver a high level of service. We all hope they get their ISP/technical woes resolved. It will probably improve everyone's life. They're our best option right now!

This is nothing personal against Mike (who I've yet to have the pleasure of meeting) or any of the other folks who are behind the magic that is iws. I'm sure I have a lot more things in common with these folks than I do differences. Mike ended up coming through with the informal forecast, which I think is great.

This is a symbiotic relationship, and I don't think criticism should be considered so unwarranted.

[ethurlow]

Thanks Mike- It will be good to get back into the windsurfing season regularly and plan my breaks/escapes from work.

Ernie