The biggest determinant of whether you should go out or not should always be … the weather!
A while ago, a great and wise skipper taught me that when you are out on the water, you (being the skipper) should always be thinking at least 6 hours ahead in terms of the weather.
If it looks great now, you still have to be thinking – what might be coming later on… Once the weather is already looming above you, it becomes a much more stressful situation if you haven’t planned for it, or haven’t allowed enough time to pack everything up, get everybody onboard, stow the gear and get out of the way.

Without a doubt, the most useful resource I have ever relied upon has been the Australian Bureau of Meteorolgy data, published on their website.
If you have a laptop or computer (or now an iPhone, iPad or other web-enabled device), you can browse their information directly.
Check out this link for our local page:

In addition to this, I personally have on my iPhone and iPad a couple of apps which summarise this information really nicely, so it’s there at the click of a button.
I’m not into advertising apps per se, so I’ll let you browse and find those that look best for you.

Whichever way you choose to go, make sure you ALWAYS check the weather before you go, and preferably keep checking it while you’re out.
As the old saying goes – ‘an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure‘