Weather Forecasts

Going on our first cruise (NCL Getaway baltics). Do the ships provide daily port weather forecasts?

Yes you will get it on the daily planner the night before. If you check your specific roll call there's probably someone posting the long range forecast on there. I'm a meteorologist by trade so somewhat picky about the site. But for international locations "weather underground" is a pretty good site.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thanks. I have frequently used weather underground, but we won't have internet on board so I was hoping the ship would provide the info.

Long time forecasts are very unreliable so they won't be of much help anyway.

If you have internet the BBC weather page is good across all Europe, detailed for 3days and giving a forecast up to 10 days

BBC.co.uk

Thanks to all

I would suggest to check the weather forecast in the daily planner for the next day.They do for sure check the local weather services before printing their forecast onto the planners,so these will be the most reliable ones.

Especially in Norway,Finland and Russia the waether is very very difficult to predict,even for 2 or 3 days in advance.

I think people underestimate how good the medium range forecast (7-10 day) are from the computer guidance and ensemble data compared to what they were just a decade ago. The European center has put a lot of work into that effort and it has paid off. The 7 day forecast today from the ECMWF model is about as accurate as the 4 day back in the early 2000s

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hunwolf, which website do you use?

Here in Germany we did have had a real summer with some sunny weeks in a row 11 years ago, meanwhile. When I was a little boy, we still had real summers and winters. These times are gone! Weather in Europe got very unstable in the past years. Sunny periods get shorter and more seldom. 'Summers' are so evil, that cruise ships cannot call at Warnemunde due to heavy winds or even storms sometimes, for example.

Even short range weather forecast is useless very often. I'm currently observing weather forecast for a particular region in southern Europe for the next week. 10 days ahead, the weather forecasts of different models were quite good. Now, 5 days ahead, the forecast is quite bad for the first half of next week. Sometimes, weather forecasts for the next day are not even next to reality. So what?!

I'm focused mainly on cloud cover, the difference between good and bad weather, when it comes to photography. Good sources are www.weatheronline.co.uk where you can chose between different models, and www.wunderground.com. The german service www.kachelmannwetter.com delivers very good cloud cover forecasts, limited to 5 days ahead, for good reason. Jorg Kachelmann is a very popular meteorologist in Germany, the cloud cover models are very 'conservative', and thus very good.

Hunwolf, which website do you use?

For model data I use weatherbell, but it's a pay site.

For general international weather forecasts I would use weather underground. Just google it. It's very popular.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Here in Germany we did have had a real summer with some sunny weeks in a row 11 years ago, meanwhile. When I was a little boy, we still had real summers and winters. These times are gone! Weather in Europe got very unstable in the past years. Sunny periods get shorter and more seldom. 'Summers' are so evil, that cruise ships cannot call at Warnemunde due to heavy winds or even storms sometimes, for example.

 

 

 

Even short range weather forecast is useless very often. I'm currently observing weather forecast for a particular region in southern Europe for the next week. 10 days ahead, the weather forecasts of different models were quite good. Now, 5 days ahead, the forecast is quite bad for the first half of next week. Sometimes, weather forecasts for the next day are not even next to reality. So what?!

 

 

 

I'm focused mainly on cloud cover, the difference between good and bad weather, when it comes to photography. Good sources are www.weatheronline.co.uk where you can chose between different models, and www.wunderground.com. The german service www.kachelmannwetter.com delivers very good cloud cover forecasts, limited to 5 days ahead, for good reason. Jorg Kachelmann is a very popular meteorologist in Germany, the cloud cover models are very 'conservative', and thus very good.

Are you looking at the model data straight from the ECMWF or the EC ensembles?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Are you looking at the model data straight from the ECMWF or the EC ensembles?

Usually GFS (wunderground & weatheronline), at Kachelmann 'Europa HD 5 Tage'; cloud cover forecasts beyond about 5 days appear as a nice gimmick to me, it is just useless ...

Don't rely even on the night before weather forecasts in Norway. You can leave the ship at 9 am with a forecast of dry weather all day and it can still rain by lunchtime. And vice versa, of course. All that sea and those mountains, with warm sea water and cold snow only a couple of miles inland, plays havoc with the local weather systems.

Norwegian weather is very local, too. In March I sailed Hurtigruten, and checked the forecast for Bergen (very good, winds 10 mph) and for Trondheim (light winds, less than Bergen for the next three days) - and thought we'd have a lovely smooth passage. I should have checked Alesund - their forecast was winds of 50 mph, and we had a captain's warning to go to our cabins or find somewhere to sit, and stay there.

All those forecasts were accurate, but all specifically very local. Be warned, the weather will do anything.

Usually GFS (wunderground & weatheronline), at Kachelmann 'Europa HD 5 Tage'; cloud cover forecasts beyond about 5 days appear as a nice gimmick to me, it is just useless ...

Agree about the cloud cover forecast. I'm not sure what algorithm they are using. I will say the GFS is much less reliable at this time scales than the ECMWF, but many sites use it since it is readily available (UKMET office charges for the EC).

If you are really into weather the weatherbell site is GREAT resource but it's $130/year. No I don't get commission. [emoji6]

Actually my organization runs the GFS *ducks*

But weatherbell has some great meteogram tools for the various models and ensembles.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

We felt that NCL could provide more of a forecast the day of each port. They would say things like sunny or cloudy but no specifics. There was a temp on the daily put in the room the night before but it wasn't very accurate.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

We felt that NCL could provide more of a forecast the day of each port. They would say things like sunny or cloudy but no specifics. There was a temp on the daily put in the room the night before but it wasn't very accurate.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

The forecasts provided by NCL on the daily planner (for our Baltic cruise) were horrendous. They missed the high temperature for Tallinn and St Petersburg (Day 1) by about 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Don't rely even on the night before weather forecasts in Norway. You can leave the ship at 9 am with a forecast of dry weather all day and it can still rain by lunchtime. And vice versa, of course. All that sea and those mountains, with warm sea water and cold snow only a couple of miles inland, plays havoc with the local weather systems.

 

Norwegian weather is very local, too. In March I sailed Hurtigruten, and checked the forecast for Bergen (very good, winds 10 mph) and for Trondheim (light winds, less than Bergen for the next three days) - and thought we'd have a lovely smooth passage. I should have checked Alesund - their forecast was winds of 50 mph, and we had a captain's warning to go to our cabins or find somewhere to sit, and stay there.

 

All those forecasts were accurate, but all specifically very local. Be warned, the weather will do anything.

In Norway, it's definitely the local weather systems that are the challenge. Oslo even has microsystems across the city, so a forecast for one area can be completely off base for a different part of town. On the plus side, it leads to lots of rainbows, because it's often sunny in one place but raining a few blocks away!

According to people who work at yr (the local weather authority), it is possible to create very accurate forecasts, but it requires so much processing power that it's simply not feasible for a regular basis.

The only time the weather is easy to predict is during midsummer because it always rains.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/vadret-ofta-daligt-vid-midsommar-2

https://www.metro.se/artikel/d%C3%A5ligt-v%C3%A4der-varje-midsommar-s%C3%A5-h%C3%A4r-har-det-sett-ut-de-senaste-tio-%C3%A5ren-xr