Oh The Weather...

[BigWalleye]

Originally Posted by sublynx

I wonder if I have a glitch in my system. With Stiebler's envsim.act I get at least 2 - 4 days of the weather staying the same. I don't seem to get the 15 m/s storms all the time, though. I now took Stiebler's envsim.act out of my system to experiment with h.sie's envsim.act.

A couple of considerations:

The SH3 weather model just doesn't permit short term fluctuations, like a one-hour rain squall. If you are getting 2-4 day periods of the same weather with good variation between the periods, that's probably as good as you can expect. If you have 1 or 2 4-day periods of bad weather in a 30-40 patrol, that's not bad.

But the weather in SH3, in spite of all the impressive graphics, is really not all that bad. The worst weather possible is 15 m/s, about a 30 knot wind. That's a 7 on the Beaufort scale, what the World Meteorological Organization calls a Near Gale. Not a full Gale (Force 8) and a long way from a Storm (Force 10), which has winds of 55 knots. Wave heights should be 4 m, not enough (I think) to completely submerge the turm. Four days of Force 7 winds in the winter North Atlantic? Yeah, okay.

One big problem is that stock SH3 says that storm conditions start at 7 m/s. That's 13 knots, Force 4, a Moderate Breeze! I have never had the pleasure of trying to man a deck gun under those conditions., but I've worked a 35 foot sailboat in Force 4, and never once was I in fear for my life.

NYGM at least raises the storm conditions to 11 m/s. That's still only Force 5, a Fresh Breeze. On a low-freeboard submarine that might be a tad dangerous, but it's hardly beyond human capability.

So raise the storm level to 11 m/s (or higher) and go after them. You're just not going to get a lot of clear, calm, sunny days in the North Atlantic.