As a professional Meteorologist with the Met Office, I was lucky enough to have been one of those few individuals to have walked the line from Commercial forecasting, to Media and finally into Defence forecasting and this gave me a wealth of Meteorological expertise. So, in 2014, when I was approached by Richard Hartley of Spanish Highs Mountain Guides based in the Sierra Nevada and asked if I could help out with some weather support for their climbing expedition to the Patagonia Ice Caps, I was more than delighted to offer my help and give up some free time.

I was already planning to launch my own private weather service with a specific interest in being able to offer weather support to sailors when in remote areas, such as sailing transatlantic. Being a Meteorologist isn't just about providing information for Saturday's barbecue or for businesses not to make financial losses, it is very much about being able to give pre-warning of severe weather events and to ensure people's safety. This has always been my mantra throughout my forecasting career and something I wished to emulate through my new business. After talking to Richard about his previous and upcoming expedition, I realised that mountaineering was another area that could benefit from more weather support.

So together with Richard, we devised a way to short-code weather data which would be sent to their Yellow Brick Tracking device, allowing a way to send regular forecasts of wind, gusts, temperature, possible windchill, precipitation (amounts and type). I was able to send this coded forecast covering different time periods and more importantly for the relevant altitude as throughout the expedition, I tracked their progress via the Yellow Brick Tracking service online. This method proved successful and so was born MeteoGib’s Weather 4 Mountain service, going on to use this remote forecasting method for 3 of their Patagonia Expeditions, also for some of our other clients including an ascent of Khan Tengri in Kazhakstan and a trek across the world’s largest frozen lake, Lake Baikal in Siberia.

A similar method was adapted for sailing, changing the code to allow for Marine forecasting variables so that we were able to convey forecast wind speeds, gusts, visibility, weather along with swell and sea state – our now tried and tested Weather 4 Marine service. Regular forecasts are sent via Yellow Brick and Iridium making sure our clients are well aware of the expected weather ahead, by tracking their progress via Expedition and Predictwind software, also sending a short-coded extended outlook so that they were always aware of any impending poor weather and any action/ change in course we recommended they should take.

As we approach the 10th Anniversary of launching MeteoGib, I still find it incredible to think that from my office or sat at home I am able to send forecasts out to the middle of the Atlantic or the top of a mountain, in the hope wherever possible to help my clients achieve their goals and to get them home safely.

You can read here in an old article for Yachting World - “Why cruising sailors should consider using a professional weather router” - how we helped keep one of our clients S/Y Blue Pearl safe from Typhoon Chapala in 2015.