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Sample Questions Answered in Starpath Weather Training Materials


Briefly discuss why the main challenge of marine weather is usually finding more wind than avoiding too much wind.
Briefly discuss the relationship between onboard observations of conditions around you and the forecasts you receive onboard from weather bureaus?
What is a Marine Weather Services Chart (MSC) and where do you get them?
Discuss the distinctions between Synopsis, Forecast, and Observations heard on the VHF radio and other weather reports.
Discuss why you can't judge a typical marine barometer quality from its cost.
Explain how to figure wind speed and direction from the spacing and orientation of isobars on weather maps.
Explain why isobar spacing (the pressure gradient) alone is not always enough to make accurate wind predictions at a given latitude at sea.
Explain briefly how to check barometer quality.
Why do Highs generally have clear weather and light winds while Lows have clouds, rain, and strong winds.
Why it is important to be able to determine true wind speed and direction from the apparent wind speed and direction?
When sailing toward the equator, how do you know when you have entered the trade wind belt?
Why is the polar front so important to the weather in the rest of the Northern oceans?
What are "centers of action" and how to they affect our cruise planning?
How is it that storms in the North Pacific have caused so very much more destruction to mariners underway than any hurricane anywhere ever has.
Why don't we have "roaring forties" and "screaming fifties" in the Northern Hemisphere?
What are the doldrums and what causes them?
Very briefly describe Lows, troughs, and fronts, and how their distinctions make a difference underway.
Describe where and when squalls form and how they behave.
Why is a "squall line" worse than a line of squalls.
Describe how you would "see" or detect an approaching cold front compared to how you would detect an approaching warm front.
How do you put the most distance between you and an approaching tropical storm?
Discuss the role of your navigation radar in evaluating squall motion.
Discuss how the wind shifts when a frontal system approaches and then passes, and does this vary with the type of front?
What distinguishes storms, gales, hurricanes, and small craft warnings?
Comment on the statement that it is just as easy to choose to sail in a hurricane as it is to not sail in one.
Explain why one side of a tropical storm or hurricane is referred to as more "dangerous" than the other side.
In the Northern Hemisphere you know a tropical storm is headed your way. How to do you tell if you are on the dangerous side or the “navigable” side?
Explain why low clouds do not move in the same direction the surface wind does.
Give several examples of the Beaufort Wind scale that are easy to remember and useful frequently.
What is the basic difference between stratus type clouds overhead versus cumulus type clouds, and how does that impact our sailing?
Explain why some types of fog can come with 30 knots of wind and won't "burn off" while other types of fog can only be formed in very light air and burns off by midday—and how to tell the difference.
Why certain cloud patterns cause oscillating wind shifts large enough to jibe on.
Why is it that official fog forecasts in some areas can be reliable even when wind forecasts on the same day have been totally wrong?
How do we judge the severity of approaching bad weather from the nature of high clouds that precede them over existing fair weather?
What are the differences between swells and waves?
Review quick rules of thumb for predicting wave heights based on wind speed, duration, and fetch.
What determines the height of the waves?
Why are seas in the trade wind belt so much larger than those of corresponding winds in other areas?
Why are seas running against a strong current are so dramatically steeper than those running with a current?
How do you read the current direction from the surface texture or from white caps?
What is meant when weather reports say the "wave height is 5 feet"? Hint: it doe not mean all waves are 5 ft tall nor that the average height is 5 ft.
Why do open water gusts in the Northern Hemisphere usually shift to the right?
Why do most rules for predicting wind speeds, directions, and shifts that work in the ocean rarely work on waters sheltered by land or mountains?
How do we choose the most efficient reaching angle when sailing downwind?
What can we know and anticipate about wind shadows and the general issue of wind flow around obstacles?
How do we predict wind shifts in the waters near steep shores and headlands?
Describe briefly the behavior of a building sea breeze in the Northern Hemisphere?
How do we predict wind shifts in waters near a low shore or beach?
How can it be that the wind just off a low headland can be much stronger than in midchannel in a northerly but much weaker at the same location than in midchannel in a southerly, even when the midchannel winds are the same speed in the northerly and southerly?
How can a good barometer be used to verify weather maps?
Discuss how often we get new weather information each day?
Discuss how to best use surface analysis maps in conjunction with forecast maps — what we call "map sequencing" — for ocean routing underway.
Why must we compare GRIB forecasts (model output data) to analysis from the weather services before depending on them?
Explain briefly how we might verify that a GRIB forecast is likely valid for the time and place we care about.
List some unique values of GRIB forecast data over traditional weather maps.
Explain why we must be cautions when using GRIB forecasts which are so readily available from so many sources.
Discuss the timing (when available, when valid, etc) of readily available GRIB forecasts compared to NWS and similar analyzed products from around the world.
How do we determine where and when hurricanes are present and the probabilities of running into one?
How do we get the most out of voice high seas weather broadcasts if you don't have a fax machine?
What are the optional ways to get weather maps at sea?
What are pros and cons of having a radio receiver be part of the fax machine vs. using your SSB radio and a stand alone fax recorder or computer to take fax maps.
How do we get NWS maps and text reports on the Internet?
What are the best resources for planning a sailing voyage in various parts of the world.
What are Pilot charts and how do we use them?
What is the Mariner’s Weather Log and how do we use it?
What is FTP-mail and how is it used to get weather data?
Where do we find GRIB forecasts on land and at sea?
Why is it that a ring around the sun or moon is how native shamans earned their keep as weather forecasters?
Why are windward squalls not the ones to worry about?
How do we tell from cirrus clouds which way bad weather will approach?
Why is a barometer is so important to forecasting?
What are the most important onboard observations needed to forecast the wind?
What do you do if the weather maps do not agree with your own observations of wind speed, wind direction, and barometer?
What is the potentially the very first indicator of the possible approach of a distant storm?
How do you tell if an approaching squall has already let down its dangerous downburst of strong gusty winds?
What can we learn from ripples and cat’s paws on the surfaces of waves?
What is a fast or slow rate of barometric pressure change, and what it means?
How do you tell at sunset if you are going to have a squally night at sea?
How do we keep a good log book that will help with weather forecasting?
How do we tell who is ahead in an ocean race?
Explain a way to layout your course to meet favorable winds ahead at the right location.
Why do all vessels tend to round up (turn into the wind) when surfing down big waves, and how to avoid it.
How do you predict your new heading when you jibe to the same apparent wind angle on the other board?
The Coriolis force is reversed in the Southern Hemisphere, which leads to the reversal of several prominent behaviors of the wind. List as many of these as you can.
List three of the main distinctions between Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere weather (other than the factors that are reversed).
What are the primary sources of weather data in the Southern Hemisphere.
And much more...

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