How best to use & understand and make the most of a Rain Radar Weather Map; and what exactly is the "Worthing Effect"?

I find the Rain Radar Maps one of the best online weather applications that you can use, nearly as good as as this site :)

When you see and hear "showers" and "rain" in the forecast, then it's always worthwhile looking at the Rain Radar, whilst there are many freely available, I always find myself coming back to Net Weather's Rain Radar.

Why all the interest in showers?

The showers can dramatically affect the wind, and if out on the sea that's crucial to not just enjoying yourself but also your safety.

Back in the day, off the beach by Worthing Yacht Club, there would often be over 100 windsurfers out, and then windsurfing gave way to kitesurfing, but what both sports require is a solid 20mph, Force 5, and we (the local Water Sports community) often refer to the Worthing Effect, a phrase, I don't know when, I coined a long time ago when doing the daily weather blog.

Firstly, maybe best to explain more about the "Worthing Effect". It's an afternoon SW'ly sea breeze, common in June through to September, with the wind having switched from an earlier NW'ly around Noon and then gradually picking up and gusting 25mph by mid-afternoon.

Out to sea, there is nigh on a cloudless sky; however, inland there will be a very obvious line of cloud, almost encroaching over the Coastline and atop the Downs,  Cumulonimbus, having bubbled up from nothing, which can become very dramatic indeed.

In nigh on 40 years of wind/kitesurfing and running a weather station, and being aware of windspeeds along our stretch of the South Coast, I know that from Littlehampton to Shoreham we do get stronger winds that the likes of the Solent, Hayling Island and the Witterings to the West and Eastbourne and Rye to the East; and I surmise that this in part is due to our proximity the the Downs; and if you hark back to your geohgraphy lessons at school this image might be familiar in explaining what a seabreeze is :)

With or without the potential of showers, it's always common sense to keep a close eye on the cloud formations when out on the water, as should the cloud start rolling out over the sea you can be pretty damn sure that the wind will quickly change direction (back to NW'ly) and drop, leaving you stranded out at sea.

The advantages of using the Rain Radar is that you can see how prevalent they are, and if there's a likely window of dry weather, and it's not just useful for water sports, but any activity, from Formula One through to waiting to walk the dog :)

For cycling, it's great as you can see how and which direction the showers are tracking*, so you can plan your route and timing accordingly.

Plus, it's interesting to see the showers inland whilst Sunny Worthing is bathed in clear blue skies!

The various images below show how you can track* the bands of showers; the more intense showers are coloured red.

*Images below show showers tracking from the NW (top left) to SE (bottom right), and it's best to use the arrows on either side of "Latest" to see how the showers are tracking over the course of time.

NB more usually, especially with weather systems emanating from the Atlantic they will track from the SW to the NE, and often you will see the bands of showers tracking up from the Solent and taking a route between the M3 & A3, leaving locations to the East of Selsey relatively dry.

Image below prior to the rain arriving.

And this was taken at the same time, looking inland at the approaching showers.

And then again after the showers had tracked through.