I agree that Weather forecasting is one of those situations where you can be wrong, terribly wrong, a lot of the time and still keep your job! However, those who have been fishing a long time also know that conditions vary widely based upon specific areas. Also, by using your own past knowledge, many of the modern tools, and good judgment you can often come up with a more accurate prediction as to the conditions you will face in a given location.
For example, I saw the same NOAA forecast on Thursday evening showing East at 5-10 with a 1-2' sea. However, Windfinder, Superforecast, 6 pm update, showed NE 10-15 with some higher gusts until about 11 a.m. Sure enough that was what I encountered in the eastern LI Sound yesterday, a sloppy tight breaking short chop. Very uncomfortable to say the least. However, I also know that wind speeds and direction often change in concert with a change of tide and the tide for my area was due to go slack around 9:30. Sure enough, close to 10 a.m the wind started to back down and by 11 the Sound was perfectly calm and pleasant the rest of the day.
Once again, we can all get it wrong from time to time but my system works like this. I monitor 4 different forecast models, Windfinder, Windy.com, Passagemaker, and NOAA. As most have noted NOAA always seems to be the most inaccurate and often underpredicts. If I see the 2 of the other 3 models ail in agreement, then I feel reasonably sure that is what I will be dealing with the next day. Of those 3 I find Windfinder and Passagemeker to be the closest on most days and I wait for the 6 pm update from Windfinder before making a final call.
Let me know if your experience is the same as mine or if you have another "crystal ball" that works better! 
