Downloading Verbal Forecasts (Metarea) via Saildocs
In my seminar entitled New Methods of Getting Weather Information on Board we have learned that by utilizing the ship's email, we can, through the service Saildocs, to receive the official forecasts and the very useful Grib Files (if you haven't attended my seminar, click here to read a very interesting article in English, which explains exactly what Grib Files are) which give us digital weather maps for the entire world.
In this article I will show you how you can get Metearea verbal forecasts through the same system, which also cover all the seas of the world. The process is simple.
We send an email to query@saildocs.com. In the subject we write what we want or nothing. For example, if I were in your place and wanted to download Metarea III, which concerns the Mediterranean, on August 14, I would write a title in my email Metarea III – 14 August 2015, so that if I need it in the future I can find it easily. Of course, in the lesson I have shown you another way, even more practical, to store the maps and other meteorological information related to each day.
In the main body of the email we write the send command and the code of the region we are interested in. For example, for the Eastern Mediterranean we will write:
send met.3e
After a few minutes we will receive an email back containing the meteorological message we are interested in. The codes for each region are as follows:
| Code | Metaarea description |
| Met.1a | North Part of North Atlantic Ocean (High Seas) |
| Met.1b | Northeast Part of North Atlantic Ocean (Offshore) |
| Met.2 | East Part of North Atlantic Ocean |
| Met.3e | Eastern Mediterranean Sea |
| Met.3w | Western Mediterranean Sea |
| Met.4 | West Part of North Atlantic Ocean |
| Met.5 | North Part of South Atlantic Ocean |
| Met.6n | South Atlantic Ocean North of 60S |
| Met.6s | South Atlantic Ocean South of 60S |
| Met.7 | Southeast Atlantic Ocean + extreme SW Indian Ocean |
| Met.8n | North Indian Ocean |
| Met.8s | Southwest of Indian Ocean |
| Met.9 | Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf |
| Met.10ne | Northeast of Australia (Pacific ocean) |
| Met.10n | North of Australia |
| Met.10w | Southeast of Indian Ocean |
| Met.10se | Southeast of Australia (Pacific ocean) |
| Met.11ior | West part of the North Pacific Ocean (from China) |
| Met.11por | West part of the North Pacific Ocean (from Japan) |
| Met.11sW | West part of Pacific Ocean, 0-12S 90E-142E approx |
| Met.12 | Eastern part of the North Pacific Ocean |
| Met.13 | Northwest of Pacific North and part of Arctic waters |
| Met.arctic | From SW corner 67N, 44E to NE corner 80N, 165W |
| Met.14s | South Pacific south of 25S |
| Met 14trop | South Pacific north of 25S |
| Met.15 | Southeast Pacific |
| Met.16 | Southeast Pacific between 18S and 3S) |
I remind you that our email should be "clean" of signatures and irrelevant characters.
You can also, if you have an internet connection on the ship, view the forecasts directly by clicking on the links below:
http://www.jcomm.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105&Itemid=37
http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/forecasts/marine/high_seas
Regarding the last link, the table below will help you understand which area each forecast text covers:
east_pacific_1.txt = OPC
PACIFIC N OF 30N AND S OF 67N E OF A LINE FROM BERING STRAIT
TO 50N 160E
east_pacific_2.txt = NHC
E PACIFIC FROM THE EQUATOR TO 30N E OF 140W AND 03.4S TO THE
EQUATOR E OF 120W
east_pacific_3.txt = NHC
E PACIFIC FROM 03.4S TO 18.5SE OF 120W (Metarea XVI)
north_pacific.txt = OPC
PACIFIC N OF 30N AND S OF 67N E OF A LINE FROM BERING STRAIT TO 50N 160E (Metarea XII)
north_atlantic.txt = OPC
NORTH ATLANTIC NORTH OF 31N TO 67N AND WEST OF 35W (Metarea !V)
north_hawaii.txt = HFO
NORTH PACIFIC EQUATOR TO 30N BETWEEN 140W AND 160E
south_hawaii.txt = HFO
SOUTH PACIFIC EQUATOR TO 25S BETWEEN 120W AND 160E
You can also receive the above areas via email by sending the title of the metaarea to saildocs. For example, you can send the command:
send http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/forecasts/marine/high_seas/east_pacific_2.txt
You can also send two sends to the same email. Then you will receive two replies back, one for each send.
I wish you safe travels and in case of difficulties or questions get in touch with me.
Professor of Naval Meteorology
Main article source: http://davidburchnavigation.blogspot.gr/