Hey Piston,  thanks for your post. While Baywind gives real time wind readings they are only point in time and don't give you any context for the measurement nor indication of what is likely to happen.

Wind can be a 'noisy' event, ie it swings up and down even though it is following a trend, so looking at one point in time is not going to give you a feel for what is really happening.  Live readings come through every 10 mins for most locations, at one interval it could be averaging 10 and gusting to 20 and at the next interval it could be averaging 20 and gusting to 30 (I have a perfect example chart to demonstrate this but I can't see any way to attach photos here?). 

So depending on what time interval you check at you could get a very different picture to what is actually happening there.   Having all the live readings for the day show you what has been happening to this point and having the forecast overlaid on top gives a good indication if its likely to increase or decrease in strength as well which Baywinds does not give you.

Hey Sonofdarryl,

Thanks for your great comments! I’m glad you like the site and I don’t blame you for being sceptical, anyone who has a vested interest in declaring something is ‘better’ should be approached with caution. The thing is I am a fisherman, perfectionist and proud engineer.  I wanted to solve the ‘which weather site do I use’ problem once and for all and researched for a year before starting to build the site, which after assembling a team took a further two years. I know its been built to be the best and that article myself and the team wrote to explain why (www.fishranger.com.au/the_truth_about_weather_sites) does clear a lot of the waters around the topic. As you correctly point out, weather forecasting and weather sites use well understood scientific and mathematical principles. It’s not a ‘black art’ of secret formulas, it’s well understood processes and broadly used methods and there actually is a best answer.

Regarding the app, an Android app is currently on the Play store and an iPhone app is in development. In the meantime for Apple you can install the WebApp - yes its an extra step than going to the App store but it will give you the same result and can be done in under 30 sec (This video explains how if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY5n2RVdwA8&t ). If you have your favourite locations saved then it is much easier to change locations you just press the star and select the one you want, though I understand what you mean about fat, wet and cold fingers on the boat! I’ll have a think about how we can make the buttons easier to press.

Yes the new Wind Cast feature we wish to develop would include inland weather stations as well as stations on the coast, I agree they contribute to a better view of the overall conditions. We would have multiple locations on the one page with this feature, I hadn’t considered swell charts as well but I’ll have a think how we could do it as I think I understand what you would like – easy to use, everything on one page and get a view of the whole area at once. Thanks for the suggestion.

Regarding removing charts you are not interested in, you can already do this for the Forecast page. Create an account, go to account settings and you can select which charts you want to see and you can also change the display order. I will point out though that if you are interested in swell you should leave the secondary swell chart in view. Secondary swell can often be larger than primary swell and it comes down to the point at which the BoM meteorologist declares them one or the other. If you have two different swell fronts (which can occur from having two storms at different points in the ocean), then the larger one will be called the Primary Swell but after a couple of days it may die down and the other secondary swell front could be stronger yet its name hasn’t changed to primary yet. You should always look at both. If they are coming from significantly different directions it can cause huge wave crests where they intersect.

Regarding your comment about customising a page with different locations and the charts you want to see, I’ll have a think about that too. The building blocks are there its about coming up with the glue logic. I’ll also look into what we can do about incorporating live buoy data, this would be a great thing to add to the site.

Also, following your comment about the wind chart tooltip we’ve just made a change for mobile and tablet which is now live on production so you can slide the tooltip left and right rather than continually having to press it where you want it. Try it out. Given it is html based rather than native app it isn’t as smooth as it could be on older phones but its still acceptable IMHO.

We are always happy to take suggestions on new features you want to see or hear about things that annoy you so please tell us. Thanks again for your message, its feedback like this that really helps us understand users and make Fish Ranger better.

Joe

 Thanks Tom. Thats our goal, to arm fishermen with the best and most up to date information.

Can I ask what Almanac you use?   Solunar theory which most of these Almanac apps are based on is not a proven theory so we have been reluctant to incorporate it into Fish Ranger.   Do you use it to tell you peak fishing times or do you get other information from it? 

Swompa I don't get you, but I'm not sure I'm supposed to  

 Hi Gruntre, yes real-time is there on the current day forecast.  And unlike Willyweather who only show average wind speed we show average speed and gust speed.

An additional thing we do that Willyweather don't is pick the weather station most representative of the selected location rather than the closest.  For some coastal locations Willy might pick a station 10km inland rather than one on the coast 12km away.  The one on the coast is much more likely to represnt conditions on the water than the one inland. 

 You guys have one over there too, I'm watching this one called Debbie, who names a cyclone Debbie? Anyways, it looks bad. We're still at King Ash Bay in the NT looking after the caravan park, but out of here in a couple of weeks. Don't want any cyclones about when we're on the move again.

Hi Stumpie,

Yes our text forecasts are provided by BoM so they are the same terminology - Sea refers to wind wave and swell referes to swell waves - which can be broken into Swell 1 and Swell 2.

The charts are driven by the same data that drives MetEye, though we show more of it such as every hour instead of every third hour, air pressure etc,

If you go to the Waves section of MetEye you will see the same terminology - Wind Vave (waves caused by wind), Swell 1 (Primary Swell front), Swell 2 (Secondary Swell front).

I hope that clears it up.  Apologies for the late reply I've been offline for a few days.

Joe

Hi Scottnofish (lol!),

I've corrected the spelling mistake on Fremantle.   If you PM me your email address, or send it to  I'll look at your account and get it fixed up.

Cheers,

Joe 

Hi Ranmar850, thanks for your question however I'm not sure I fully inderstand it. All the charts do currently have tooltips so if you move your mouse over them (on PC) or press your finger on them (mobile or tablet), it will give you the values at that exact time in a little pop up box.

Is that what you meant or did you mean something else?  Also, what device are you using to look at the site - PC/mobile/tablet and if so what version/browser?

Hi Ranmar,   thats strange behaviour. What browser are you using?

If you are using Internet Explorer it will definately have problems as IE doesn't support vector graphics.   The new browser that comes with Windows 10 called Edge does support vector graphics and the site  should work fine however given the complexities with ad ons and updates it's possible your configuration doesn't work.

We reccomend using latest version of Chrome or Firefox.  If you have one of those installed give it a go and let me know.

Sorry that you are having these problems.

Joe

Hi Ashen,

I don't know what area you are interested in so I can't give a specific view but I can tell you that the weather forecasts are most accurate for the first 3 days of the 7.  The way BoM put together data relies on two distinct sub-models, one of them covers the first 3 days and is the most detailed. So the best view of Sunday will be available on Friday morning. 

The other thing you can look at is the air pressure chart.  Stable air pressure corresponds with stable weather patterns so the flatter the air pressure chart over the week the more likely weather will be stable over the week  (= not strong winds bringing in new fronts).  I just had a look at Perth over the week and air pressure looks pretty flat so its a good sign the rest of the forecast over those days will be fairly accurate. 

Hope that helps.

Joe

Hi Stumpie,

We only show charts relevant for the location you have selected, if the location experiences swell then we will show the swell charts  You may have selected a location in a bay where swell doesn't exist?  Let me know which one you were looking it (there is a chance we configured it incorrectly too).   

Try picking a location inshore or offshore and they should all have swell charts.

Cheers,

Joe 

Hey Stevo,

Thanks for your feedback.    Yes I am aware of a few glitches while running the site as a webapp but can you tell me the one or two that annoy you most? I'll look at what we can do to fix them.

The iOS app we are currrently building is not fully native so unfortunately a lot of the glitches will still be present.   The app will give a presence on the app store, will manage (and enforce) sign in & authentication natively, and will manage geolocation natively, but the rest of the app will frame the existing site in webview.  

While I would love to build a full native app you are talking around 80k to get it built and at the moment Fish Ranger can't afford it as it has no income.   Unfortunatley fishing companies we have contacted so far have been unwilling to get onboard with advertising, many don't have an online advertising strategy they only do print and other media.  So while its not only cost over a few hundred thousand to build the site its currrently burning a lot of money operating as well (BoM data costs 13k pa alone).    This light weight iOS app will atleast give us a presence on the app store as many users don't know how to install a webapp/don't want to and we are hoping this will help to boost user numbers.

I'm glad you mentioned having a list of your favourite locations you can scroll up and down because the new feature I was talking about developing called Wind Cast is not that.   Wind Cast would show paired forecasts & observations from all surrounding observation stations, not a list of your favourites.  Having forecasts and real time for all your favourite locations in one big scrollable list doesn't solve the problem of the mismatch between the location of your forecast point and the location where real-time measurements are taken. Wind Cast would effectively provide a 3D live wind map because it gives a view of wind at a few points in the region and you can see the entire day (or week) forecast at a glance without needing to move to the next timestep (ie like on Meteye).

Having a menu that provides wind forecasts at each of your favourite locations is not something we've really considered but is it something you would use?  From a programming point of view its not that hard to have a page that just shows wind charts for each of your favourites listed down the page its straighforward.  One problem however is that only about 10% of users actualy sign in and use favourites.  I don't know why this is, I think its because people are generally technology fatigued and don't want to take the time to set them up.  This is one of the reasons we will enforce sign in with the new iOS app - its a much better experience when you are signed in and can save favourites, change units / chart order etc.

Also, I should point out now, given the reluctance of advertisers to get onboard we will not be able to keep the site running without a subscription based service.  My view was to build the new Wind Cast feature (and if you think a Wind Favourites feature would be good as well?) and charge a few dollars a month to acccess them while leaving the current feature set free.   Are people willing to pay for it?   Society has an expectation that information should be free and if it isn't then you just go somewhere it is (and make unknowing compromises in the process). But the reality is, given all the money spent to build the site to date, money required to keep it running, all without me being paid a dollar in 3 years despite this being my full time job, it is unfeasible to keep it going unless there is a steady income stream.   So please be honest (and I throw this open to anyone not you specificially Stevo) would you pay for it?

I've covered a few points there, probably too many for one post, but its written now so I'll leave it.

Cheers,

Joe

Thanks Crano, appreciate your confirmation.   

Hi Guy,

Yes you can change the units to m/s.  You need to create an account and then you go to My Account -> Account Settings -> Unit Preferences

You can also change the chart order and save favourites when logged in.

The site is 10x better when you are logged in and can save favourties  so create an account and give it a go.

Joe

 Thanks 420, appreciate the feedback.  When you say you've wanted it for ages, do you mean within the context of using and knowing about Fish Ranger or you've wanted this feature even before you knew about Fish Ranger?