> wonder what is meant by "high certainty

My understanding is that the prediction in from the "5-day forecast" dataset has a 90%+ accuracy record ever since the polar-orbit birds went into service.

The general rule of thumb tends to be that 5-day forecasts are 90%+ accurate, 7-day forecasts are 80%+ accurate, and 10-day forecasts are only exactly accurate 50%+ of the time, but this is for precipitation.  Air masses are large, slow, and easy to track, so the generalized weather is far more accurately predicted than the percentages of rain prediction might appear to indicate.

Weather matters quite a bit to both farmers and beekeepers, so the issue is not divergent from "informed beekeeping".  When my son does his first cutting of hay each year, 3 days without rain to let the hay dry means about $250K profit, and any rain during those 3 days means that the hay business will lose money that year.  

NOAA has the "Joint Polar Satellites" which image the entire planet twice a day, as the Earth does all the spinning for them, while they just go round and round.  These are what make the 7-day and 10-day forecasts so accurate. There are specialized satellites that track El Nino and La Nina winds, such as the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership bird.  

For sailing, there are a number of free (passageweather, oceanweather...) and a few subscription services that will help with weather reports for sailing, but I still ASLO use the old-skool weather radiofax charts https://www.weather.gov/marine/marsh -  old habits die hard.




 

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