National weather service sites

Weather warnings

Sea area forecast websites

These give forecasts for up to 48 hours for Irish waters. Met Éireann gives forecasts for stretches of the coast between named headlands, while the UK Met Office uses named sea areas. This map shows both.

Weather charts

The web has innumerable weather sites, all apparently offering their own charts and forecasts. However, most draw on the same small number of datasets and models for their predictions. Many use data from the American GFS model (from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), which is made publically available. Other major weather models for Ireland and the surounding seas are produced by the UK Met Office, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and the European High Resolution Limited Area Model consortium. Links to charts produced using these (and more) models are below, grouped by the weather model used to produce the charts.

UK Met Office (UKMO) model

ECMWF model

NOGAPS model (US Navy)

NOAA NWS GFS model

HIRLAM

Other models

Current weather

Satellite images

Dublin weather summary forecasts

This is Windfinder’s handy 6-day summary forecast for Dublin. The wind forecast is good, but the precipitation forecast is poor, often showing zero rainfall despite showers outside. For accurate rainfall predictions, try Metcheck, Windguru or the Met Éireann rainfall radar map (links above).

 

Radio forecasts

You can get radio forecasts on RTE1, BBC Radio 4 and VHF

RTE Radio 1 (FM 88-90 MHz, MW 567 & 729 kHz) broadcast the Sea Area forecasts at the following times:

Mon-Fri – 06:02, 12:53, 16:55, 23:55

BBC Radio 4 (LW 198 kHz) broadcasts Sea Area forecasts at the following times:

05:35 12:01, 17:54, 00:48

(The 05:35 and 00:48 forecasts also include the inshore waters forecast).

VHF forecasts are generally broadcast once every hour – listen to Channel 16 or the coastguard working channel for information.

 

Other forecast sources

If you don’t have access to the internet or have a radio to hand, you can find forecasts on Aertel, in the day’s papers – e.g. the Irish Times / Irish Independent or on mobile services such as Met Éireann’s Weatherdial (Tel. 1550 123 855 for sea area forecast, N.B. this is a premium rate service).

 

Wind speed conversion

The websites and forecasters listed above variously use knots, km/h, mph and the Beaufort scale for wind speeds. To convert, see Windfinder’s conversion table.

 

Learning about the weather

To understand the charts and weather data linked above, the UK Met Office’s factsheets give a nice introduction to weather and forecasting.