TECHNICAL FISHING: Weather Watchers
WORDS: The Editors IMAGES: Supplied
Bring on the cold fronts of Autumn (indeed, any time of the year!) – with these three weather apps you’ll be able to ditch the bad days and spend the best ones out on or next to the water.
YR.NO
Web, IOS & Android
The official weather platform of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, YR.NO is also the most recommended by top local anglers for its up to date forecasts and localized accuracy. The platform draws local weather data from more than 9 million places and independent stations across the world. The website offers forecasts (as graphs, symbols and maps) with detailed weather system tracking and live webcasts available for most parts of the country. The app enables you to track various locations simultaneously and outputs weather as a sky overview, table or graph featuring wind, barometric pressure and predicted rainfall.
Weather Underground
If you’re a tech junkie this app is definitely a must try. Primarily a data centric platform, Weather Underground harnesses inputs from local weather stations making it simple to get an updated report from a town nearby your favourite dam. Besides the standard data formats, what is particularly useful are smart forecasts to determine the best days to go fishing taking into account temperature, wind speed, wind direction and precipitation, a handy feature when trying to pick a day ahead of time.
If you are of the belief that you can never have too much info try this free platform out on the operating system of your choice. If you want to track up to the minute radar data and storm tracking, Weather Undergrounds partner app Storm Radar will provide accurate radar and wind animation for any location across the globe.
Accuweather
A long trusted platform, Accuweather is one of the most simplistic weather apps around. The no frills interface provides up to the minute forecasts and short term weather predictions up to 72 hours away. A nice but often ignored feature is the sunrise and sunset reminders as is the detailed satellite imagery. Powered by the Weather Channel, Accuweather is available on most platforms including Windows mobile.
Other tech to check out:
Before heading out on any trip do as much planning as possible to accurately predict the potential of a chosen dam, including the weather. The platforms should form part of essential analytics before every trip.
Department of Water Affairs Hydrology Site:
With rapidly fluctuating water levels around the country keeping a close eye on weekly dam levels can be critical to determining where the fish should be holding or moving to when you arrive. The Hydrology site of the department provides weekly comparisons for every major dam across the country and the percentage increase or decrease for the week. This data is essential to determine if the available cover is still in the water, if there will be current moving through the system or where the next staging area available to fish will be.
Streetmaps.co.za
Streetmaps.co.za still offers one of the best local sources to review reasonably accurate topographic maps for a range of dams across the country. Each map can be zoomed into specific contour depths and then compared with locations based on Google Maps satellite imagery. Maps have offered up some key information to finding channel bends or productive ledges at dams across the country. Its worthwhile to browse maps for all of your local dams even if you own chart cards for your sonar units.
