Understanding Weatherfax [Paperback]

Mike Harris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2002

A guide to procedures and techniques for receiving weatherfax charts and satellite images. It explains how to interpret the information from these charts and images into meaningful weather forecasts. The author seeks to unravel the mysteries of the synoptic chart and the information it contains, and shows how to interpret early warning signs of storm development from satellite pictures. There are case studies on the 1991 Perfect Storm" and the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race. This second edition is updated with more information on the Internet as a source of weather advice."

Editorial Reviews

Review

...a small but highly useful and readable paperback....I would not have a weatherfax without such a volume on board. With it, you may get everything from your weatherfax you once expected when you installed the equipment. If you are new to computer weatherfax, here is a good starting point. -- Dockside, April 1997

Harris walks through the technology, weather patterns and charts, and his easy-to-read writing style effectively interprets these details and pulls them together. -- Sailing, May 1997

The perfect reference book to shelve beside the often confounding weatherfax receiver, Understanding Weatherfax offers a thorough going over of what the title promises. -- Ocean Navigator, July/August 1997 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Mike Harris has spent 14 years cruising in interesting places while writing and developing software for cruising sailors. His micro-office, www.pangolin.co.nz, is his boat, a 45 foot steel cutter which he built himself. He is currently cruising in New Zealand with his wife and daughter.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: A&C Black; 2nd edition (March 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0713661224
• ISBN-13: 978-0713661224
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,171,373 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really great book, part of the whole picture, May 16, 2007

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Understanding Weatherfax (Paperback)

I bought this book in preparation for an advanced mariner's meteorology course, and could not have made this comment without having first gained that higher level of knowledge.

This is a suberb book. It provides superb information about the weather fax, including an excellent and easily portable manual for the various symbols. It has two areas for improvement:

1) It sticks to the two-dimensional depiction of weather that is common to the average person. Although there are a couple of illustrations showing altitude, the author could easily have put in a few pages on the rotation of the earth, the 500 mb level, and how weather on the surface cannot be understood without underestanding what is happening at the 18,000 level. As my instructor put it, the high-level troughs are the chicken that hatches the surface level (scrambled) egg.

2) It does not make the connection, at least that I could see, between the vital importance of making your own observations at 00 and 12 Zulu, so that when you finally receive the weather fax six or seven hours later, you can compare reality with what was provided. This also applies to forecasts--you can keep them, compare your own observations as the time passes, and get a sense of the difference.

Add the above, and read "Mariner's Guide to the 500-Millibar Chart" by Joe Stenkiewicz and Lee Chesneau, and Google for <Lee Chesneau> to find his web site, and you'll have all you need to move to the better three-dimensional interactive viewing of weather and weather charts.

I also recommend The Weather Wizard's Cloud Book: A Unique Way to Predict the Weather Accurately and Easily by Reading the Clouds