Swell v Marine Forecast
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There is very little agreement between the wave forecasting on Windy and the NOAA marine forecast for same area. Swells often forecast at 1ft on Windy and 4ft on NOAA. Best way to get accurate localized wave forecast on Windy??
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On Windy have you tried both wave models ? The default model WAM from ECMWF and WAVEWATCH3 from NOAA.
In both cases, Windy and marine forecast, was it the swell and not the waves (total sea) that you got ? -
Additionally:
Windy does not create any forecast data but instead only visualises forecast and actual data received from various third party providers.
As @idefix37 mentioned, there are different models, each of which interprets the weather data using their own methods, and this can result in different forecasts.
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@idefix37 Yes tried both. About same. Swell heights not really very useful for boating compared to total wave height. We get primarily local wind waves in afternoons here in summer and Windy doesn't seem to capture that as far as I can tell.
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@ockygto
Right, significant waves height is more important for boating than Swell itself.
If you compare NOAA wave charts with Windy using the NOAA model, Wavewatch3, the maps are quite similar for significant waves heights, which is reassuring:
