Yesterday, we flew our survey area. It thunderstormed throughout the night and into the early morning. When we woke, the weather had subsided and the winds dropped down to 12knts. Thinking that the weather would follow the forcast and pick up, we waited for the next few weather buoy updates. None of them showed the predicted winds.

We took off at 11:30am and flew from north to south. Before the plane was even off the ground, two public sightings came through on the pager alert system. We were preparing for a busy day. Uncertain that the weather would hold out long enough to complete a full survey, we decided to just cover the St. Mary's and St. John's River channels, that is the northern and southern end of the survey area. We proved the weather men wrong, sighting 6 whales and 3 mother and calf pairs and informed a vessel of right whales near by. All in all it was a successful day.

The weather forecast can be useful in planning your week, but today is a perfect example that predictions are not always 100% accurate.


subscribe