The weathers been a bit pants lately and I have to say that it if wasn’t for the mass availability of forecasts and real time weather information online, I probably wouldn’t have fitted in the sessions I have this month. The internet is the by far the best place to get accurate weather information and any angler that fails to use this to their advantage has to be daft!

This week I thought I’d give you the low down on what weather websites I use and why...

Each and every evening when I can, I make a point of going online and looking at the weather - even if I’m not fishing. Weather forms patterns and if you continually watch weather systems, you’ll get a better feel for what is happening. Look at it like watching Corrie every night... if you miss a few nights, you soon lose the storyline!

After booting up my PC my first port of call is always the Met Office www.metoffice.gov.uk why I hear you ask “They’re always getting it wrong” you say! True, but if you work in an industry that revolves around weather, from a legal perspective, you’d be a fool not to take notice of their forecasts. I also work on a law of averages method... the Met Office may not always get it right - but when compared alongside two other websites I use, I can generally get a feel of who’s right and who’s wrong, and then work out what actually will happen with tomorrows weather, comparing the three forecasts with my own observations of the current surface pressure charts.

On the Met Office website I look at the UK forecast, weather warnings, local 5 day forecasts, the shipping & inshore waters forecasts and the surface pressure charts.

After the Met Office I click on www.xcweather.co.uk – this is one of the best weather websites to give the Met Office a run for their money! The Tab ‘Observations’ gives real-time wind and weather information via the left hand links. The ‘Forecast’ tab gives accurate 5 day forecast info. All you have to do is hover your cursor over the location on the map you want information for, or click on the animations link.

The last site in my law of averages system is www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsavneur.html and you guessed it from the foreign site name, this one is going to get a little complicated!

In my view there is no better website for 99.9% accurate wind predictions than Wetterzentrale. Firstly click on the ‘GFS’ link in the top left hand menu. Secondly click on the ‘Europa’ link in the next menu to the right. And finally click on ‘10m Wind (Mitleleur)’ in the third menu along the top. What you should end up with is a coloured chart.

If you look carefully in the top left hand corner, you should see an outline of the UK and Ireland. The colour contours on these charts represent different wind strengths, in knots, which can be compared to the scale down the right hand side of the charts – Blue winds are gentle to fresh – green indicate strong breezes – and yellow to red indicate very strong winds. At the top left of the chart ‘Init’ is when the forecast was issued, and at the top right is when the forecast is valid for. Just under the main menu you will find links numbered from 00 to 180 that increase in 6 hour increments – these are forecasts from the present up to 180hrs ahead.

Many forecasts like the shipping forecast generalise for a whole sea area, i.e. winds of force 5-6 for Portland to Plymouth. Where it may be F5-6 in Plymouth, at Portland it may be a more comfortable F3-4 occasionally F5. Generalising for large areas is where I think many forecasts fail! On Wetterzentrale you will be able to see the different wind speeds throughout each sea area and not have to rely on a generalisation based over hundreds of square miles.

Before leaving the Wetterzentrale site, if you click on ‘Fax’ – ‘Sembach’ and then ‘Sat-Analyse 24hr’, you’ll find some pretty cool surface pressure charts which can help you understand weather systems, frontal cloud and the conditions associated with. There’s a lot of handy weather stuff on the Wetterzentrale site - learn your way around the menus and you’re sure to add a few links to your favourites folder.

The Met Office, Xcweather and Wetterzentrale, form my three main weather forecast websites, but for worldwide weather, www.weather.com can be pretty handy too.

After Wetterzentrale I then usually pay a visit to the National Date Buoy Centre www.ndbc.noaa.gov/ and it’s here that I can find out just what is and what has been going on at sea, big brother style!

Firstly locate the UK. Then zoom in. Then find the Buoy closest to you, or the buoy closest to where you will be fishing. My local Buoys are 62103 Channel Lightship and 62107 Sevenstones Lightship. Here I can find out up to date info like... current wind, wave height, wave period, air temperature and sea temperature. The lower chart gives a 24hr history, and this means I can check if the above conditions have increased or decreased and form an opinion on whether I think they will continue to do so. If the wind and sea state have been decreasing or increasing, this can often confirm the current forecasts and/or my own observations. Having accurate sea temperatures can assist me estimating the arrival of, or seasonal feeding patterns, of some fish species.

I like to surf as well as fish, so the next site I find handy for both fishing and surf forecasting - www.a1surf.com if you click on the surf forecast page, you’ll find up-to-date swell and wave forecasts. And on the surf reports pages, you’ll find real-time info including webcams, about what the conditions are at your local, chosen beach or a beach nearby. I find this particularly helpful for bass fishing where on some marks I want swell whilst on others I don’t.

The WindGuru forecasts on the bottom of each A1surf report page are as accurate as XCweather. Whilst on the subject of waves, using wave modelling websites like the NOAA Wavewatch, www.polar.ncep.noaa.gov/waves/viewer.shtml?-NE_atlantic- is another great way to forecast flat calm conditions for boat fishing or good breakers for bass fishing etc.

Now that you’ve missed Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, Corrie and Eastenders, my final stop of the night is always to check what the tides are doing. You can have the best weather in the world, but if you get the tides wrong, the fishing won’t be much cop. Check out www.easytide.ukho.gov.uk/EASYTIDE/EasyTide/index.aspx

Years ago you could only get tides from a tide book - then came tidal prediction software. Today you can click on Admiralty Easy Tide and print off a week’s tides, for most places in the world, completely free.

And years ago if you wanted up-to-date, accurate weather forecasts and surface pressure charts, you had to use Metfax at a ridiculous cost. Today, again this is all available online completely free!

Today’s modern angler can gain all the info he needs spending a night watching the box...