As many of you have noticed over the years I almost always begin my fishing reports with current or past weather conditions. Why you may ask? Since there are limited hours in the day, and in the week, I schedule my week and activities around the weather. It is pretty rare that you find me mowing my grass on a still clear day. Mowing is best left for windy overcast days. If there is indoor honey does to be done, I schedule these around rainy or smoking hot days. In short I am a fair weather fisherman. Sure on occasion I go, just to go, but rarely. Because my time is limited, I try to only fish the average to great days, especially offshore.
I listen to the NOAA Weather Forecast on info-line every single morning, including the marine forecast, local forecast, and extended forecast. I also log onto CharlestonFishing.Com regularly and look at the weather underground radar information and NOAA buoy readings. Finally I have a weather station mounted inside my kitchen. From home I track wind speed and direction, temperature and I watch the barometer like a hawk. Keep in mind I am not a Meteorologist, and at no time do I solely rely on my own forecasting abilities. I always listen to the latest marine weather forecast prior to leaving the dock.
The barometer is by far one of the best instruments for weather forecasting. Once you know a little bit about how to interpret barometric pressure, as well as wind speed and temperatures, you can develop your own forecast relatively easily. Provided herein are just a few rules for interpreting changes in barometric pressures.
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Single barometer readings are not generally useful for forecasting weather. Readings must be recorded at regular intervals so that their patterns can be examined over time.
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There are normal diurnal changes in barometric pressures. Pressures generally reach their maximum at 10 am and 10 p.m. and their minimum about 4 am and 4 p.m. A standard diurnal change would be as much as 0.05 inches or 0.01 inches per hour. Changes of up to 0.02 inches pe