Predict The Weather Before Your Next Yacht Trip

Forecasting the weather is of course important for anyone planning a trip in his yacht.

Many factors enter into the problem of making successful weather forecasts from the examination of weather maps. The experienced forecaster, for example, has due regard for the area under consideration, the topography of the land, and the distribution and effect of land and water areas.

Professional forecasters, from long experience, have found however that certain general conclusions may be drawn which are of help in analyzing probable changes in the weather map. Some of the more important ones are summarized in the Weather Bureau's publication, Weather Forecasting, as follows:

1. When there is an area of high pressure over the southeast and a cold wave in the northwest threatens, there will be storm development in the southwest and precipitation will be general.

2. If a storm forms in the southwest and is forced to the left of a normal track, another storm will immediately begin to develop in the southwest and it becomes a sure rain producer. Storms that develop in the southwest and move normally are quickly followed by clearing weather.

3. Troughs of low pressure moving from the west are of two types: the narrow and the wide. The former moves eastward slowly and storm centers develop in the extreme northern and the extreme southern ends. When the trough is wide the development of an extensive storm area is not uncommon, especially if the wide intervening area between the Highs shows relatively high temperatures.

4. When the northern end of a trough moves eastward faster than the southern end the weather conditions in the south and southwest remain unsettled and the chances are that a storm will form southwest of the High that follows. When the southern end moves faster than the northern end settled weather follows.

5. Storms that start in the northwest and move southeastward do not gather great intensity until they begin to recurve to the northward. At the time of recurving they move slowly, as a rule, and care must be exercised in predicting clearing weather.

6. Marked changes in temperature in the southeast and northwest quadrants imply an increase in the storm's intensity. Small temperature changes do not indicate a further development of the storm.

7. Abnormally high temperatures northwest of a storm indicate that it will either retrograde or remain stationary.

8. East of the Rocky Mountains a storm which moves to the left of its normal track increases in intensity.

9. Storms with isobars closely crowded on the west and north west generally move slowly and to the east or southeast, and the precipitation and high winds are maintained unusually long in the northern and western quadrants.

10. Storms with the isobars closely crowded in the south and southeast quadrants move rapidly northeastward, and the weather quickly clears after the passage of the storm center.

Systems of communication throughout the country are today so highly developed that, through the medium of newspapers, the telegraph, telephone, radio and even the radiotelephone, yachtsmen are generally able to avail themselves of the scientific weather information and forecasts issued by the United States Weather Bureau, rather than being forced to rely on their own doubtful capacity to predict by means of local observations. (Of course, during a war such systems of weather communications are suspended.)

Taking note of some of the predictions above will make your life as a yachtsman so much easier.

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