Palmfishing.com.au

Article by Ben Dereki

There are a number of excellent resources online which can help provide anglers with information on how the weather is behaving.  The websites often offer different features to users and occasionally differ in the information they provide, hence many anglers tend to refer to more than just one source in order to get a second opinion on what is happening.

The following list of websites is by no means definitive but it provides insight into the more prominent and popular websites used by anglers across the country.

BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY

The Bureau of Meteorology is the Commonwealth Government’s weather agency which has been in operation since around 1908.  Under The Meteorology Act 1955 the Bureau is responsible for taking and recording weather observations, forecasting, issuing weather warnings and supplying associated information. Interestingly the Bureau is required to do all this in the public interest but particularly for the purposes of the Defence Force, navigation, shipping and civil aviation and people involved in primary production, trade and other forms of commerce. As the country’s official weather website you can find reports and forecasts here on just about anything for just about anywhere.  This can make it difficult to find the coastal waters and local weather information for first-timers but as you become familiar with the site, or if you save the page to your favourites on finding it, navigation becomes easier.

SEABREEZE

 Seabreeze is a one-stop-shop for anyone across Australia who loves getting out on the ocean that want to know the weather.  The site was originally designed for kiteboarders and windsurfers but due to the amount of information provided anglers have jumped on board and are now regular users, and for good reason. Graphs are the primary approach Seabreeze uses to pass information on to its users which makes it quick and easy to interpret what the weather is doing.  The main graph for each region weather is provided for shows seven days of wind speed, wind direction, wave height and temperature. Scrolling further down the page gets you access to data on tidal predictions and movement (note the movement shown is not real-time but rather an extrapolation of what should take place between the high and low tide readings) as well as live weather readings from more specific locations within the region.

WEATHERZONE

The site is a good alternative to the Bureau of Meteorology, where much (not all) of Weatherzone’s information is drawn from, but it is collated into a much more user friendly and intuitive format.

In the left hand column click ‘Forecasts’ and then choose the appropriate State.  From there users can navigate by district to the region they would like weather for and a summary page appears with all the appropriate information.  Clicking the ‘marine’ link brings users to the relevant wind, swell and tide data.

BOUYWEATHER

Based on the readings from a number of weather sources Buoyweather provides what they refer to as ‘virtual buoys’.  This means – pretend there’s an actual buoy located wherever you click on the map and the website will provide you with weather forecasts for that location.

OTHERS

There are a number of other websites such as AskHuey, Swellnet and Eldersweather which all provide marine based information and are other sources of data available to anglers.  While content does differ between websites some do offer the same information in different formats and use of these sites comes down to personal preferences.

Spend some time on these websites and find a couple which work best for you.