Guide To Sailing Weather Apps
Before heading out to sail, you always want to be well apprised of the weather conditions! Unfortunately, many traditional weather apps just don’t cut it in the sailing world. Let’s take a look at which sailing weather apps to use and why before hitting the water:
Traditional Weather Apps
There are a few reasons you won’t want to rely on traditional weather apps when planning a sailing trip. For one, they can be overly generic.
For example, in the Virgin Islands your weather app may show a picture of storm clouds for the next week straight! However, this icon or overview may just be reflecting short isolated showers in the afternoon hours. This is incredibly common in the Virgin Islands and doesn’t mean that you won’t have wonderful weather and champagne sailing for most of the day. It just means you may see a few raindrops at some point during the day— worth bringing a rain jacket but likely nothing to stop you going out and having a great time.
Secondly, these weather apps may only give you information about the wind on land and it can be very generic as well. Before you set sail, you’ll want specific information about the knots of wind on the water— not the wind conditions at the St. Thomas airport!
SailFlow https://www.sailflow.com/
SailFlow is a top choice for sailing weather apps due to its accuracy. The app itself is free but once you download you’ll find that there is a paid version as well. If you are in search of the best available real-time wind reports and detailed forecasts, you’ll at least want to download the free version of the app and try it out. The free version of SailFlow includes a storm tracker, 50,000+ reports from stations world wide, information on tides and currents, and much more. You can compare the features for the paid versions and the free version here.
WindGuru https://www.windguru.cz/229370
Another great choice for free sailing weather apps is WindGuru. WindGuru is available both as a website and as an app on your phone. While WindGuru doesn’t offer the extensive information you’ll find on SailFlow, it is incredibly easy to read the weather reports on this app, which is one of the main reasons we recommend it.
Windy.app https://www.windy.com/TIST?18.337,-66.185,8
More of a visual learner? Windy.app may be more up your alley than WindGuru. It offers customized maps and views for the area you’ll be sailing with the option to add layers like clouds, air quality, wind, and more. Windy.app also features live webcams so you can check out the weather in the area you are sailing before you even leave the house!
Combining Forces
You may fall in love with one of these apps but even if you do, we recommend you avoid becoming too attached and using it exclusively. Download multiple weather apps on your phone, compare their reports, and then make an educated decision about where to sail and when!
Do you have other sailing weather apps you love to use? Shoot us an email and let us know so we can check them out and recommend them to other students and sailors!