Everything below is for Calshot Castle, at the entrance to Southampton Water, and for the Solent around it. It is a good reference for club sailing and a poor one for anywhere else: for a passage further afield, take a forecast local to where you are actually going.
Skipper’s responsibility. Everything on this page is a planning aid. Skippers remain responsible for checking weather and tides against official sources as part of passage planning, in accordance with the Sailing Orders.
Two local quirks. Calshot has double high waters, and the predictions below show the first. And club wind limits (Sailing Orders O.5) apply to the mean forecast speed, not the gusts.
Inshore waters forecast
Selsey Bill to Lyme Regis, up to 12 miles offshore. Issued by the Met Office four times a day.
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Forecast © Met Office. Read it in full on the Met Office site.
Out there right now
Modelled conditions over Bramble Bank, in the middle of the Solent.
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Model data by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0). For the real thing, measured on the bank itself, see Bramblemet, run by the Solentmet Support Group, a charity that keeps those masts alive on donations.
Wind map
Drag, zoom and scrub forward in time. Wind in knots.
Four-day forecast
Calshot, at the entrance to Southampton Water. Wind in knots.
Tide tables
Calshot Castle. Remember the double high water: the first is shown.
Seven-day predictions & curves (UKHO EasyTide)
Tidal data © Crown Copyright (UKHO). Not to be used for navigation.
Other sources
- Bramblemet
The automatic weather station on Bramble Bank. Wind, tide height and sea temperature in the middle of the Solent as they are now, not as anyone forecast them - Shipping forecast
Gale warnings, wind, sea state and visibility by sea area. Wight and Portland cover us, and it is the one to read before a Channel crossing - Windguru
Hour by hour wind for Calshot with several forecast models in one table, which is the quickest way to see whether they agree with each other - Met Office warnings
Yellow, amber and red warnings for wind, rain, fog and thunderstorm. The check before a trip that commits you to being out