Currents GRIB files at (very) High Resolution [Update]

[Updated]

The website barotropic.fr provides a set of current files in GRIB2 format compatible with Weather4D Routing & Navigation (¹). These predictions cover several areas from the English Channel to Aquitaine, with a resolution for some files up to 250 meters per step of 15 minutes ! They are derived from raw data from IFREMER and put in format at the exclusive initiative of the author of the site (²). Read more …

El Niño is back

After three years of La Niña (¹) in the tropical Pacific Ocean (mid-2020 to mid-2023) having brought a fairly calm weather situation on Polynesia : regular trade winds, lack of hurricane, mainly dry weather, this idyllic situation will be reversed with the announced return (²) of the El Niño phase of the ENSO climate phenomenon(El Niño Southern Oscillation). Finally, idyllic, it wasn't for Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Melanesia and western Australia, which experienced much higher than normal intense rainfall and increased hurricanes during the same period. Read more …

The European Union is moving towards Open Data

 

Europe is moving forward in small steps, but it moves forward… Towards open access to data from public services ! The 21 December 2022 was published in the Official Journal of the European Union, under reference C/2022/9562, the " Implementing Regulations of the European Commission establishing a list of specific high-value datasets and how they will be published and reused". Read more …

Share GRIB files with Air Share [Update]

You are more likely to have adopted the Iridium GO! for its easy way to request GRIB files, directly from Weather4D and some other applications. But some also want to transfer these files to PC to import them into Windows software (as you know, nobody is perfect !). An easy solution is available : the messaging app Air Share, compatible iOS/iPadOS (¹). [Update 30 March 2022] Warning : the app has changed its ID code on the AppStore. Read more …

ECMWF weather data soon open to the public [3rd part]

Trafalgar Hit for the flagship of European meteorology, despite Brexit and contrary to what had been planned (¹), the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecast will stay in England ! Even better, a new headquarter for ECMWF to be fully funded by the UK government through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Proof that the British have gone all out to keep this European scientific center in Reading (²). Read more …

Are GRIB files consistently optimistic ?

This question has been asked regularly, but until now I had never wanted to publicly give my opinion on the subject so as not to offend anyone and especially not to create unnecessary controversy. But by dint of doing it during my training, why not express it openly ?

My opinion, forged by observation and a long professional experience in pleasure boating (¹), is that this assertion of the systematic optimism of the GRIB forecasts regarding wind force, which unfortunately continues, no longer has a reason to be, and has not been verified in fact for some time. Read more …