Members may not yet be aware that the Marinecall SMS service has ceased. In my opinion this is no great loss. Some of the products were distinctly dodgy eg the suggestion that they knew what the actual wind was at Start Point, never mind being able to forecast it at that specific location. Similarly, the implication was misleading that the forecast could differentiate between Hamble Point and Port Hamble marinas. Naïve in the extreme.
For those who use mobile phones to get forecasts, it is fairly straightforward to view pages of text on the screen eg
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Weather information |
Met Office URL |
|
UK Shipping Forecast |
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/shipping_printable.html |
|
UK Inshore Waters Forecast |
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/inshore_printable.html |
|
High Seas Forecast |
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/highseas_printable.html |
|
Latest Gale Warnings |
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/gales_printable.html |
|
Storm Warnings |
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/stormwarning_printable.html |
|
Weather actuals |
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/observations/index.html |
These are all text only versions.
I know that it is a mouthful, but if you go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/education/betsie/parser.pl/0005/www.bbc.co.uk/weather/coast/shipping/, you can get weather information on the BBC web site with rather smaller downloads than the text only versions on the Met Office site. Those marked with an * are not on the Met Office site.
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UK Shipping Forecast |
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UK NAVTEX Shipping Forecast and 24 hour outlook* |
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Extended outlook for 3-5 day for all UK Sea Areas * |
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All UK Inshore Waters Forecasts |
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Single area UK Inshore Waters Forecasts |
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Warnings |
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Coastal Forecasts* |
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Coastal and Buoy reports |
Obviously, all these pages will be easier to view on a PDA, handheld or laptop.
Other Marinecall telephone and telefax services will continue. Some words of caution :-
The outlook forecasts for sea areas, the forecasts for European sailing areas and the outlooks for inshore waters areas are all direct output from the Met Office Numerical Weather Prediction model. In the same way that GRIB forecasts, such as those from UGrib, Movingweather, Saildocs etc, will underestimate winds so will these Marinecall forecasts. For safety, I add 20%, or about one Beaufort force, to get a better idea of expected winds. That is not a criticism of the model itself; all models will do the same. It is a criticism of the Met Office that they do not make it clear in the same way that most providers of GRIB services do.