Tracking the weather...

At Chicago Sailing we spend a lot of time tracking the weather. Our captains are better weather guys than Tom Skilling sometimes! A lot of customers call the office inquiring about the weather prediction and winds.

Here's a quick run-down of the sites we use in our office.

The Chicago Tribune has a marine forecast. Click on weather on the right, scroll down until you find the Marine Forecast. Or just follow this link. The Tribune's radar is one of our favorites.

Another bookmark we use quite often is weather.com. Though, this season it has not been so useful for weather predictions. The radar is helpful and easy to use - though always keep an eye on those clouds. This area of Chicago has a number of storms pop up suddenly and travel over Chicago.

When it comes to tracking the wind, our staff is split between two different sites.

NOAA tracks winds off of the crib in Lake Michigan, follow this link for your own wind readings.

Sailflow pulls information from a number of different harbors. We prefer gathering readings off the Chicago Offshore point.

For those with newer phones, there are some apps out there for you!

On iPhones, there is an app for NOAA Weather Service. Set your location to Chicago and you have a mobile weather reading and radar. The next version promises wind readings.

Are there other iPhone apps you are using? I know there is a compass app that can be used, but haven't tried it myself.

Blackberry's app store includes Weather channel apps and Weather Underground for those of you on a crackberry.

The dock today is busy, despite many of our staff member's participation in the 101 st race to Mackinac Island. Best of luck to each of them - though some are competing against each other!


Look at that empty dock. Happy Sailing folks!