How the next seven days are shaping up for a private day on the water — wind, swell, rain and tides, scored at a glance.
Every day is rated green (perfect), amber (workable — pick your window) or red (not recommended). We look only at the hours a charter actually runs — 8am–4pm — and the worst single factor sets the colour, so one red factor makes the whole day red. The numbers come from the live forecast; you stay in control of every threshold below.
Wind & gusts, rain and storms from the Open-Meteo forecast for Moreton Bay. Swell height & period from the Open-Meteo Marine model at the open coast off Point Lookout (the honest, conservative number for crossing the bar). Tides are the Bureau of Meteorology predictions for the Brisbane Bar.
Wind direction matters too: ESE–SSE breezes blow straight up the bay and build short, sharp chop (penalised); SW–WNW winds come off the land and leave the water flat.
Why the tide times matter — wind against tide.
When a falling (ebb) tide runs out of the bay against an onshore E/SE wind, the two collide and stand the water up into a steep, uncomfortable chop — worst around the Brisbane Bar and the crossings. The smoothest crossings are usually when wind and tide run the same way, or near the slack around high and low water. The score now factors this in: when an onshore wind overlaps a falling tide during your charter window, the day is nudged down a level and the card flags whether it bites in the morning or the afternoon — so you can pick the calmer crossing.