I also got to play recently with a Sirius weather on a 12" plotter. It was impressive, but I would not buy it. I use my eyes, radar and radiio (both VHF and AM reciever)--the AM will give static from lightning, and you can time and see if it getting closer. The local VHF or television gives the general forcast. Visual will give storm fronts, rain, and lightning. Radar tracks storm cells. You cannot outrun the storms many times. All of the Sirius weather is available on the internet--if you have it available.
Where it might be a help, is when you don't have a TV or internet connection and want to cross an open body of water. It might help with storm cells. But we experimented tracking cells with radar vs the interntet doppler Radar, and with Radar we had adequate information.
I think that we will see much more use for AIS in the next few years. The most recent proclimation from CG commmander suggests that AIS will be required on more boats than currently (smaller commercial boats, fishing boats and larger yachts).[/b]
