WeatherNet           MacWX™ - Weather on Demand for OS X now available!

Download weather on demand over your wireless HF/SSB or satellite connection reliably, fast, and inexpensively. There are over 20,000 conveniently indexed weather products to select from.

"Global Marine Network's suite of products have eclipsed all other weather data acquisition and at-sea communication programs available for today's mariners. From 'WeatherNet', which puts virtually ALL the useful weather data in the world (WeatherFax, GRIB, quicscat, and more.) at your fingertips, to 'XGate' which is an incredibly efficient email conduit for low-bandwidth communications, to 'XWeb' which allows efficient internet access (even on Iridium!), this group of products work together most impressively. For me they are now essential tools on any offshore passage."

Bruce Schwab, Skipper, Ocean Planet - First American to officially finish the Vendee Globe (solo, around the world, nonstop)   (see www.bruceschwab.com).

If you have already purchased WeatherNet, click here to register the product.

Content

WeatherNet contains the most extensive collection of weather products for mariners in the world.  There are over 20,000 products currently on line and growing every day. Weather categories include

• Aviation
• QuikScat
• Graphical Buoy Charts
• Buoy Text
• GRIB world coverage with wind, wave, pressure, upper atmosphere, sst, sub sea temp, current, salinity, cloud cover, precipitation, and more (Requires GRIB viewing software such as GRIB Explorer)
• Ice
• Interactive Weather Nexrad
• Ocean Charts
• Satellite Imagery
• Text
• Weather Charts (WeFax)
• Interactive Weather for Custom forecasts (Charts and Text) at your location

Weather products cover the globe and consist of atmospheric,  surface, and sub-surface forecasts including for example, Jet stream data, surface wind and wave, and sub surface temperatures down to 5000 meters.  Weather products are continually being added to our content store guaranteeing you the most complete and up to date collection of data anywhere.

How it works

Users simply drag the weather products he/she wishes to download into a batch folder and then pushes the button.  WeatherNet immediately connects to the server via a wireless connection or via an e-mail service and downloads the requested data.  After the download, WeatherNet can be configured to automatically display the new weather data with programs such as OCENS GRIB Explorer or other viewers.  WeatherNet consists of 3 components.

• An internet robot: It continually crawls the internet updating the local content store of weather data on a Central server that is stored in a secure co-location facility with 100% network access guaranteed assuring the user the most complete and up to date repository of weather data anywhere.  Note that about 1/2 the weather products are generated locally and packaged specifically for WeatherNet.
• The weather server: It interacts with the client application running on the user's computer.  The server accepts requests for weather data, compresses the data, packs the data into a proprietary data stream specifically designed for wireless data connections, and sends the data to the client application.
• The client application: It interacts directly with the user allowing him/her to easily select weather products adding them to batches which can with the click of a button be enabled or disabled. By simply pushing a button the application connects to the server via the desired wireless interface and immediately downloads the requested weather.

To download weather you simply run the WeatherNet client on your Windows PC, enable or disable the preconfigured batches or create a new batch for your specific circumstance, push the download button, and then view the data.  The download is completed in a few minutes, on demand, when you need the data.  This product is revolutionary in that there are no firm schedules to adhere to or lengthy downloads.  You get the data you need, when you need it and on your own terms.

Compression

Here are some of the ways we reduce weather data sizes and save you money.

• Proprietary transfer protocol -  The WeatherNet server speaks to the client running on your PC with a wireless protocol specifically designed to optimize download transfers of data.  Standard internet protocols such as FTP and HTTP are very inefficient when downloading weather over a wireless device such as a satellite phone.  Our benchmarks show an increase of 3x when transferring comparable data with WeatherNet vs. FTP over a Globalstar satellite link. A factor of 7x improvement has been observed for HTTP transfers over the same medium.
• Proprietary compression of  weather images - WeatherNet's compression technology reduces standard weather images by 2 to 10 times their original size.
• HTML stripping - All HTML weather content is converted to plain text reducing sizes by a factor of 5. A 10K offshore HTML forecast is reduced to 2K for example.
• Data condensation - For certain weather products, such as Buoy data, WeatherNet extracts pertinent material removing dead wood. Buoy Text goes from 100 lines to 2 lines yielding current observation data and removing all historical readings.

Bottom line... WeatherNet's advanced compression features dramatically reduce the time required to download weather. This savings in time translates directly to air time savings to you. 

Viewing Weather

GRIB files downloaded with WeatherNet can be viewed on a number of different commercially available viewers. 

GMN offers a full featured viewer call GRIB Explorer. GRIB Explorer has now been integrated with WeatherNet for a simple and seamless download and display of your GRIB data. Learn more about GRIB Explorer on our  GRIB Explorer page.

Need to know more about weather forecasting with GRIB files?  Check out Chris Parker's "Coastal and Offshore Weather, the Essential Handbook".

Wireless Interfaces

WeatherNet supports any wireless interface that supports a Windows Dial Up Interface.  Supported devices include:

• Cellular phones
• Globalstar satellite phones
• Iridium
• Inmarsat M/F
• SSB/HF Pactor III
• MSV/MSAT Satellite
• Generic Internet Connection (Dial up, DSL, ISDN, Broadband)
• E-Mail interface allows WeatherNet to request weather using any E-Mail client. Works with SailMail (AirMail), Winlink (AirMail), Outlook Express, OCENS Mail, XGate, MAPI,  Cut/Paste buffer, and many others.

Demo

A limited functionality DEMO version of WeatherNet supporting most of the weather products is available a no charge here. This version of WeatherNet requires registration to obtain a DEMO key which will unlock the program for 3 days. DEMO registration keys can be obtained by filling out the request form at http://www.ocens.net/register_products.htm.  Return here to purchase the full version of WeatherNet after you have completed the DEMO.

Literature

Need to know more about this product? Please review our current press releases.....

• Press release
• Aviation White Paper

Pricing

WeatherNet's fee structure is revolutionary.  Users imply activate their account and then pay for the weather they download.  Each weather product is priced independently; data costs including estimated air time are computed prior to the download.  The amazing thing is that WeatherNet is so efficient that you will pay less using this for pay service than you would downloading this data for free over the internet using conventional methods!

Cross sample of some of the data available including sample pricing

Testimonials

Here is what some of our users have to say about WeatherNet

Senior Management at Nobeltec, Inc.

"I want to send my compliments on the new WeatherNet interface!  It's a huge improvement in our estimation and provides great usability.  I've been showing it around to a few people here and it's very well received. Great job!"

Dan Martin - Creator of www.buoyweather.com

I will use WeatherNet on my next voyage: I created almost everything on Buoyweather and I will use WeatherNet to retrieve my data. WeatherNet is easy to use, dependable, saves money and having all the weather you need can sometimes save your life!

Dan Martin

M/V Oceanexplorer

It works GREAT!! Terrific...as promised. This is the greatest thing for
mariners since sliced bread.    We will certainly sing your praises to
all whom we meet.  It seems perfect, no glitches at all.

ALSO> The HUMAN support more than makes up for any problems in the web
site, sign-up procedure, etc. Our e mails were answered in a timely
fashion and you were fantastic and knowledgeable on the phone. More
important, you were enthusiastic.

NEVER overlook this:: That everyone expects an answer to e mail within
one business day ( which you always did), and that EVERYONE DEEPLY
APPRECIATES a knowledgeable human voice at the other end of the tech
support number ( which was YOU). All the ads and boat shows in the world
won't undue the damage done my poor e mail ad support, On the other hand,
we are SO HAPPY with your e mail and support that we'll never stop
sending you business.  KEEP UP the GOODS WORK. Thanks.

Chris Parker S/V Bel Ami - Author of "Coastal and Offshore Weather the Essential Handbook" and Chief forecaster for the Caribbean Weather Network (www.caribbean-weather.net).

I know I couldn't even begin to do what I do without WeatherNet, and many many others are grateful to you as well.

Each day I get comments like:

"Chris: I never would have gone there / done that / felt secure without your weather forecasts. You have made a real difference in my enjoyment of daily life while cruising."

Comments like these make doing all this worthwhile, and I couldn't do it without WeatherNet.

and...

Based on my experience to date, for those with a Pactor-3 modem, WeatherNet via MarineNet may be the most valuable single source for weather for cruisers in the Bahamas

and...

Comparing WeatherNet to WinLink products, WeatherNet achieves a far-better compromise between level-of-detail versus size-of-file. Every WeatherNet product I've viewed has offered the level of detail I require, while keeping file size small. Many of WinLink's products are either too large (not enough degradation to reduce file size optimally) or too small (so much degradation the information is less-useful).

All that's required is to purchase the Ocens software (can be done online) and have an e-mail or Internet provider which supports TCP/IP connections. Products are downloaded on a pay-per-item basis, with most products costing from 15-cents US to 75-cents US.

The benefit of the real-time TCP/IP connection is that requested weather products are returned within seconds during the session (call) in which they're requested, rather than requiring a second session (a later call-back) to complete the download.

I've been using WeatherNet via SSB radio e-mail (Pactor-3 on MarineNet) for a month now, and I prefer it to WinLink/Ham for the reasons above...

and...

All the new content is quite impressive! There's still more to sift thru, but I really like the BuoyWx text fcsts...and the new style with a descriptive forecast including lots of neat stuff like the "Lifted Index" is really cool. This is the first example I've seen of any form of this data which is useful and can actually be downloaded via SSB/Pactor3.

and...

We recently downloaded 2 Gulf of Mexico ocean temperature charts over a Globalstar phone. Using the conventional tools the download took 10 minutes. Using WeatherNet the same download took 50 seconds for a savings of $7.50.

Sheldon Brotman

Send mail to webmaster@globalmarinenet.net with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2002 Global Marine Networks
Last modified: 02/13/08