With the modern meteorological services available online there is no reason not to have a reasonable idea of what weather you will encounter in your sailing or boating adventure up to a week ahead.
I have found these various forecasting services extremely reliable and helpful.
By watching several information sources side by side you can round out your knowledge.
For long passages it is possible to employ a weather and route planning service.
These companies can crunch all available data to give you the best possible departure times and routes.
Sea surface temperature models show the speed and direction of ocean currents.
Bluelink is a great website for seeing this, and it gives you a four day hind-cast.
Bluelink Sea Surface Temperature and Direction Hind-Cast
This is particularly useful when passaging north and south from the mainland to Tasmania or up the east coast of the mainland.
Up to three knots current can be avoided or exploited by using this information effectively.
Some services have very localised predictions that can give you wind speed and direction in your local river or bay.
Some of my personal favourites are Storm Surfing and MetEye.
Stormsurf Provides 7 Day Wind Speed and Direction Forecasts
I have found these services to be the most accurate services that receive frequent updates.
Looking at the Indian Ocean forecasts you can see what weather systems are on the way.
For local tides, I like to use WillyWeather as it is accurate, simple and also receives regular and revised updates when necessary.
WillyWeather Tide Curves
With all of these great services free and available to everyone, there is no excuse for getting stuck in bad weather while out at sea.
