help with weather forecasts.? water conditions?

[saddlemaker]

As a rookie I am planning on a couple of days of fishing... Sandheads .. looking at this weeks forecasts . how do they usually relate to water conditions.. Which days would you plan toward?


Today Tonight and Monday. Wind northwest 15 to 20 knots diminishing to northwest 10 to 15 Monday afternoon and to light Monday evening.
Tuesday Wind light becoming northwest 10 to 15 knots in the afternoon.
Wednesday Wind light becoming southeast 10 to 15 knots.
Thursday Wind northwest 5 to 15 knots becoming southeast 5 to 15 late in the day.


Thinking monday later day and then Tues.

I appreciate any insight.. boat is a 19 'with closed cuddy
Thanks Andy

 

[CBsqrd]

My general rule of thumb is that 15 kt is where is starts to become uncomfortable for most, and northwest wind is worse than southeast. That's where you get proper whitecaps and it holds up for pretty much any boat under 25'. If you are hardcore and don't mind bobbing around you could push it, but you'll be feeling it by the end of the day. 10 - 15 kt is usually ok, 15 - 20 kt is getting boarder line.

Take a look at Fishweather before you go out (either on their website or through their phone app) - it will give you the current (i.e. within 1 hr) conditions. Also look back at the history of the relevant buoys (Sandheads and Halibut Bank) - if it has been windy for a while it will take some time for the waves to lie down - and the forecast going forward.

Also keep an eye on the tides - an outgoing tide against the prevailing wind is a recipe for rough water. Coming out of the North Arm into a NW wind or the South Arm into a westerly can get hairy fast.

Your plan looks good as long as the wind has started to die down to 15 or under on Monday afternoon.

 

[Bret]

get a app called windy ty it's free, it's awesome, and its accurate

Bret

 

[pescador]

https://www.windfinder.com/weatherforecast/vancouver_airport

http://www.sailflow.com/map#49.224,-123.272,11,1


I find wind finder quite accurate. Check it before I go out. And they have a good forecast model a few days out. Sail flow is good to get immediate wind conditions around the harbour

 

[bigdogg1]

get a app called windy ty it's free, it's awesome, and its accurate

Bret

x2 on Windy Ty

 

[Ringo]

you've got good input from the guys here. I also have FishWeather on my phone and have added the Van harbor area to my favorites. you can check the main buoys for the current conditions, as well as the wind graph for the past 6 hours and the upcoming 4-hour forecast. I've found the FishWeather forecast moe reliable than Env Canada's.

https://weather.gc.ca/marine/forecast_e.html?mapID=02&siteID=14305

 

[fishizzle]

Fish weather is a great app for wind speed and direction... Tides for fishing is great website also...I come out of the Sandheads and most wind 15 knots or less out of the South aren't much of a concern but take a 15 knot wind from the NW is a totally different gets lumpy from building all the way down the straight

 

[saddlemaker]

Appreciate all the input.got a couple of the apps. Thanks

 

[aheny]

One thing to be careful of with weather apps it's they give an illusion of detail which isn't there.
There is no weather data except for the environment Canada stations, so all of their little arrows are just showing the "change over distance" between two known points.
For example, if the forecast is 10-20NW and the current conditions are 10kt at sandheads and 12kt at entrance island, it won't display the 20kt wind that could be out of the middle of the channel since there is no station out there to measure it. All you'll see are a bunch of 10, 11, and 12kt arrows evenly dispersed between the two stations, making a rough crossing look less bumpy than it is.
The other thing to be careful for is tide/current.
A SE wind hitting a strong ebb tide will make the last 5 km of your crossing real bumpy around the gulf island passes, same with a NW wind hitting the North arm of the Fraser on an ebb tide.

 

[23Hourston]

Correct me if I'm wrong but big wave Dave uses the wind models from Washington State University

 

[Tugcapitan]

Correct me if I'm wrong but big wave Dave uses the wind models from Washington State University

But wouldn't they be getting their data points from the only live monitoring gauges out there?

 

[aheny]

Correct me if I'm wrong but big wave Dave uses the wind models from Washington State University

They can make their models any way they want but they're still running off the same couple of data points.
I spent a lot of time out there and I make a lot of crossings in inclement weather, and I found a little arrows from several apps to be about as useful as I'm describing. Artistic fluff added around the real data.