Sailors can now benefit from an upgraded Solentmet weather app, providing handy real-time weather conditions in the Solent and Chichester Harbour

The new Solentmet weather app has been developed specifically for the latest versions of Android and iOS. It should work seamlessly on most popular phones. The app is entirely free of charge to users and provided without a subscription by the Solentmet Support Group charity.

The rewrite has significantly improved the customer experience and refreshed the visuals using mobile-specific displays. This makes the weather graphs more readable and navigation around the app easier.

Sailors in the Solent area have long used the read-outs from the Bramble Met weather buoy, located on the Bramble Bank opposite Cowes.

It feeds real time data into the SolentMet weather app, which allows sailors to consult precise wind data from this and three other weather buoys in the area. The others are located up Southampton Water, just outside Chichester Harbour and one inside Chichester Harbour.

The buoys supply wind speed and direction and plot a very handy graph showing trends over the past 12 hours. They give you a fighting chance of deciding which side of the race course is likely to produce the lift. But cruisers also find it handy to check on real conditions out in the Solent.

The Solentmet weather app can also display tidal heights and barometric pressure. It presents all the data in a modern, responsive app format that is native to both iPhone and Android phones.

Solentmet Support Group developer and trustee James Lavery says: “I am delighted that this new update means we are now able to deliver a modern, responsive app with real-time information including wind, atmospheric and tide height for boaters and sailors in the Solent”.

Early user reviews have been very positive.

Get the SolentMet weather app from the Apple App Store
Get the SolentMet weather app from the Google Play Store

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