A scary fact of cruising life in the Philippines is the prevalence of typhoons. And they can happen any time of year. So we like to keep an eye on what the weather is doing nearly every day.
1. We use the internet rather than HF radio. This isn't just because we are HF trogladytes. It is also because there is so much more and better information available on the internet. Here in the Philippines, where 3G or GPRS mobile phone signal is cheap and available everywhere (by prepaid card from SMART), using your phone as a modem is the way to go.
2. The website everyone keeps an eye on here is "Typhoon 2000" (a Philippines site). We look at this first.
3. If this site shows something brewing, we then check out the "Joint Typhoon Warning Centre" site (U.S.A.) for more detailed information about predicted track etc.
4. If no-one is showing a typhoon, we still don't believe there isn't one just around the corner. So we check the Australian weather bureau site - Darwin MSLP - to see if there is a low over Papua New Guinea that's getting lower and might turn into something. Philip has picked up a number of typhoons before they formed by observing these lows. Unfortunately the site is 24hours behind, so you need to keep an eye on this one regularly to look for trends.
5. If no bad weather is brewing, we may then have a look for general weather predictions: the Singapore weather bureau site for the South China Sea isobars and their satellite images; the GRIB files to see what wind is predicted here; and sometimes the NOAA Significant Wave Height site for this area.
The web addresses are as follows:
Typhoon 2000: http://www.maybagyo.com/
Joint Typhoon Warning Center: https://metocph.nmci.navy.mil/jtwc.php
Australian Bureau of Meteorology - Darwin MSLP: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/nmoc/latest.pl?IDCODE=IDD80100
Singapore weather: http://www.weather.gov.sg/wip/web/Marine
GRIB: http://www.grib.us/GribData/tabid/53/Default.aspx
NOAA Significant Wave Height South China Sea: https://oceanography.navy.mil/legacy/web/cgi-bin/graphic.pl/metoc/357/21/0-0-1/0