Forecast as a foreign language

Marine forecasts compress a lot into few words, and every word has a defined meaning. Wind comes as BeaufortBeaufort scaleThe 0–12 wind scale. F4 pleasant, F6 a yacht’s "strong", F8 a gale.full glossary → forces: force 3 a gentle breeze, force 4 moderate (a lovely sailing wind for most cruisers), force 5 fresh (time to reef), force 6 strong (a yachtsman’s gale, hard work), force 7 near gale, force 8 gale. A gale warning means force 8 or gusts to 43 knots or more are expected — and for timing, imminent means within 6 hours of the forecast’s issue, soon 6 to 12, later beyond 12.

Direction words: wind is named for where it comes FROM (a westerly blows from the west — the opposite convention to tidal streamstidal streamThe horizontal flow of the tide — the moving water that carries the boat sideways.full glossary →). VeeringveeringWind direction changing clockwise (e.g. SW to W).full glossary → is the wind direction changing clockwise — west to northwest, say; backingbackingWind direction changing anticlockwise (e.g. W to SW).full glossary → is anticlockwise. Visibility bands: good is over 5 miles, moderate 2 to 5, poor 1,000 metres to 2 miles, fog under 1,000 metres. “Sea statesea stateThe defined wave-height vocabulary: smooth, slight, moderate, rough, very rough, high… each a numeric band.full glossary → moderate” and “rough” are similarly defined wave-height bands, and matter as much as wind for comfort in a small boat.

Sources before you sail: the Shipping Forecast (sea areas, broadcast and online), the Inshore Waters Forecast (the one written for our kind of boating, in coastal strips), Coastguard broadcasts on VHF at scheduled times, and modern forecast apps for detail — used with the official forecasts, not instead of them. The discipline is to get a forecast before every passage and a fresh one for every day out: the legal duty to plan around weather sits with the skipper.

The rest of the forecast’s dictionary

The remaining vocabulary, all defined, all examinable. SEA STATE is a wave-height scale with names: smooth (under 0.5 m), slight (to 1.25), moderate (to 2.5), rough (to 4), very rough (to 6), high, very high, phenomenal — “moderate or rough” is a number band, not a mood. GALE WARNINGS trigger on gusts as well as means: gale = F8 or gusts of 43 knots+; severe gale = F9 or gusts 51+. PRESSURE TENDENCY has its own bands: rising/falling slowly (under 1.6 hPa in 3 hours), quickly (3.6–6), very rapidly (over 6) — your own barometer reports in the same units. CYCLONIC means the wind will swing as a low’s centre passes through the area; VARIABLE means light and directionless.

The Shipping Forecast itself always runs in one fixed order — gale warnings, general synopsis, area forecasts (the sea areas clockwise), then coastal station reports — so you can navigate the broadcast with a pencil. NAVTEXNavtexThe receiver that prints scheduled marine safety information — forecasts and warnings — offshore.full glossary → receivers print the same marine safety information offshore on a schedule, and the long-wave broadcast survives where phone signal does not: the belt-and-braces sources are part of the syllabus because batteries and coverage fail.