He has been predicting the weather for a little over half a century. He has done it in the last ten editions of the America's Cup, in nine Olympic Games and in countless world championships and other regattas. Roger Badham wanted to retire, perhaps before the Barcelona edition, but he suggested it to Grant Dalton and the current head of F1 del Mar did not mince words: "If you are not here, we will still call you every morning so that make us the prediction”, he says between laughs. So he continues at the foot of the canyon. His maxim, applicable to time and everything else, is not to give a lot of information, but what you do give is precise.
In Emirates Team New Zealand, where Roger has been a fundamental part for more than twenty years, they know him as 'clouds' (clouds). He is enthusiastic about looking at the sky and storms, “especially in the Mediterranean”, he points out. But now his work runs more between mathematical models. A lot of data and many hours of computing to limit the predictions to minute intervals and in incredibly limited spaces, the regatta area.
"The prediction has evolved a lot in recent years and also the America's Cup has changed, now it is incredibly faster," he says. Changes in equipment, the catamarans, then the foils (which lift the hull of the boats out of the water)... The San Francisco edition, in 2013, changed everything. “Now the boats reach 40 and even 50 knots, that is equivalent to a speed of about 100 kilometers per hour; before they were slow and the predictions to a hundred meters were useful... now they cover those distances in seconds, it is a different scale”.
Roger prepares models and makes predictions on a micro scale. The narrower, the better. “Computer models are very good on a global level, they can take a good picture on a large scale, they are very good for phenomena that cross the Atlantic, for example, but on a small scale they are still not good enough… they will be! but not yet, there is too much chaos, too many variables to take into account”, he explains. Even so, he maintains that a prediction can never be one hundred percent correct, "we are not Gods."
He does not remember the times he has been in Barcelona. There are many. "Probably the first one was in '92, at the Olympic Games." She settled in the city four months before they started to study the weather. In fact, she has worked almost all over the world: in the United States, Northern and Southern Europe, Great Britain, Japan, Korea, and of course, Australia and New Zealand. “And there are always phenomena that surprise you,” she says. He is in love with the Mediterranean, “because of its winter and its summer, because the evening breeze is very different in August or in the transition months, when temperatures vary, because the topography is especially decisive... the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Gulf of Leon...”. His desire for precision leads him to talk about the Ebro valley or the Tramuntana.
He was more passionate about sailing than meteorology, he studied mathematics and physics (PhD in numerical methods in meteorology) and worked first giving weather forecasts on the radio to later establish himself as a freelance for companies and sports teams, always forecasting (he was a pioneer) for navigation , which continues to be his great passion. Even so, for a few years he has also worked for F1 with Ferrari. "At sea, 90% of the prediction is determined by the wind, its strength, its direction... In the F1 circuit, there are other variables that are also decisive, such as temperature or rain," he explains. For now, he passes the prediction on a daily basis to the team, which now trains in Barcelona, from New Zealand and hopes to come to the city next year.
