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01 Ocean Prediction Center |
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Index of products This page summarizes most of the NWS marine weather data online. this and the Ocean Prediction Center Link are the two main links. |
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National Hurricane Center All about hurricanes. |
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OPC home This is one of the main NWS page for marine weather. Has all new wx map presentations in a convenient thumbnail format linked to latest product, plus much more. |
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Worldwide weather maps Set of analysis and forecast maps worldwide along with meterograms and some long term model output. |
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All US waters Graphic index to all NWS coast text reports, organized by "pzz number," which is the way the regions are defined on the Marine Weather Services Chart. This is the most useful organization of this data.
plus Complete text list of reports, plus backup source, plus second backup source.
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Pacific fax schedule link to fax schedule in the order they are broadcast with links to maps hot. this is the best way to prepare and practice for an actual voyage |
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Comprehensive lists of weather sites |
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Meteorology FAQ Part 1 of 7, Introduction This leads to the Introductory section of the compilation of Ilana Stern. This is *the* primary list of all weather sources on the internet. Only some of these, however, are of use in practical marine weather. There are many lists of weather sources floating around now, but Ilana Stern was the pioneer in compiling these. Her list has been the network standard for many years now. |
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NOAA online library This is a direct link to the index of NOAA's online library of sources having to do with wind and sea. Quite a list of unique resources. This Internet Guide was built in response to the many reference questions that are posed to the NOAA library and is meant to make Internet searching more efficient for the NOAA community, the academic community, other government agencies concerned with oceanic and atmospheric issues, and the general public. Presently this site has over 1,000 selected links to science and policy sites organized by topic and alphabetically within topic. All of these sites have been reviewed and annotated by NOAA Central. |
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ECMWF European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) forecast model. This model runs to 6 days and provides data at 24 hour intervals for sea level pressure and 500 mb heights. These plots are generated once a day at 8:45 PM EST. This same address includes links to the MRF (medium range forecasts discussed below). Good coastal coverage but no offshore.
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NOAA El Nino pages This appears to be one of the main El Nino pages, although there are others around the net. Remember, we sail in the weather, not in the climate — and the massive over-hyping of this subject has pushed it rather into the category of the Spice Girls. |
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Worldwide wind, pressure, and seas Select your region (top left) then see animations of current 7-day model forecasts for wind, pressure, swell, and more. MOdel data not seen by real forecasters, but very convenient presention. Does not take a grib viewer since animations are presented in any web broswer. |
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Marius Rensens HF Radiofacsimile Page A wonderful resource from Germany on all matters of radiofacsimile including a list of world wide schedules along with many other features and related links. If you want to learn about fax, this is a great place to start. |
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Humidity conversion formulas how to get from relative humidity to dew point to partial pressures to all of these as a function of pressure (altitude) etc... just the formulas, not calculators. |
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NASA Ice Info Service "Everything you wanted to know about sea ice but were afraid to ask." Excellent, with pictures of various ice conditions and many cross references to related subjects such as SAR satellites.
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UW Atmos Sci Choose your region, choose your product, choose your time frame, then watch the patterns evolve with time. Very nice. |
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Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean Surface pressures of Pacific and Atlantic oceans overlaid on current satellite photo (in IR). Isobars and winds are shown, but fronts are not drawn in. These can be seen from the clouds underlying the isobars in most cases. If not, the fronts are likely weak ones. These and much valuable data are available at Univ of Hawaii SOEST. This site is also the best source we have found for long term forecasts. -- links change periodically, so here is link to main site. Check out the MM5 data for very local winds around the islands. |
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All maps by file name This is a large file, takes some time to load. Includes actual ftp links to the products plus most useful files that tell what maps have what names. First check the list of file names to see what map you want and then select it. Note that there are "most recent" options for some. The active page tells what list of what names means what, otherwise, it takes a long time to figure out how to get the maps you want. This is the data you need to make your own "custom weather page." |
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GMDSS GMDSS weather reports worldwide, updated hourly or as needed. There are several links to this data, which is broadcast worldwide in the navtex systems and gmdss satellite reports. |
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Marine Weather Services Charts Muat have publications for all US Waters. Tells of all wx services available, along with schedules and other valuable data. Presented in 13 charts according to region. |
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NOAA Marine wx index This is a compilation of the NWS marine weather resources online. They are not all directly here, but all can be reached from this link. |
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NOAA tifs master list This is the main list of ftp links to noaa wx maps in tiff format. The descriptions are brief. See Maps by file name to get the definitions. |
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NWS Local Offices Your local NWS office might well be your best source of info. They often carry unique links and data not found in the national sites. |
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Tsunami resources This page has a thorough list of lists of tsunami links. Note that the seismic activity of the early can be monitored online essentially live. Immense amounts of data are available nearly instantly. |
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Nationwide forecasts Meteogram presentation of RUC model forecasts throughout the country. Could prove useful in predicting a good time to check your barometer. The data are presented in one large graphic of individual meteograms, so if it does not appear clear, then it might be Microsoft's irritating little full screen graphic compressor that is the problem. Find it and kill it, to see the real picture, which then you will have to scroll across. |
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Selected national sites These are the best we can find now. There are better, but the links have changed. These plots are excellent ways to study the characteristics of passing weather systems. At one time it was possible to get this presentation for any station, but this link only has a few for each region, nationally. See Regional weather for local ones. Note there are "ETA" meteograms that include predictions as well as observations. |
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Purdue University MRF 1 to 10 day MRF, 500-mb Hts, and surface pressures. Covers US mainland and good coastal water coverage, but no offshore data. European maps also available.
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FNMOC Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center. Main source of navy data, includes long term forecasts, real time winds and waves, and tutorials on the use of satellite images. |
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NPMOC-JTWC Naval Pacific Meteorology and Oceanography Center and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center |
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NEXRAD radar images nationwide |
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NEXRAD Graphics organized by city or region covered. Great pictures -- show exactly where it is raining (squalls) in a specific waterway within the past hour. This data is also capable of showing (radial relative to the radar site) wind speeds, but we have yet to find a place where this type of data is available. See this NOAA page for an extensive glossary of NEXRAD terminology. |
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NWS maps sorted by USCG HF-FAX schedules |
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Atlantic (NMF) Pacific (NMC)
Gulf of Mexico (NMG)
Alaska (NOJ)
This is the most convenient way to study the NWS weather maps as you know which are most recent and they are presented exactly as they are broadcast to mariners at sea. Unfortunately, this presentation has gone on and off the air numerous times. The Pacific and Atlantic are pretty consistent, but we have yet to find a consistent source for the AK and Gulf maps. In the meantime, there are links above to the lists of them. Here is an Index of weather maps and see also the notes on MPC above. See below for making your own list. Also see our How to Read Weather Maps section. Here is one place to get the Kodiak, AK HF fax sched. |
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FTPMail The information is in the back of the linked document in Appendix B. |
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Pacific, Atlantic, and other weather maps |
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US National Weather Service maps This is the primary source of all American map products. For marine applications, they will ultimately link you back to the Marine Prediction Center (linked below), and as of June 99 they did not have that link right. Use the one below. They are all here; longest range forecast is 96 hours. Each of the surface maps and forecasts which are broadcast on HF facsimile by the USCG. If you want to prepare for ocean voyaging and the use of maps, then these are the maps to use. They are updated several times a day. As of June 99, they offer both tiff versions and gif versions at MPC site.
The tiff files are more like the ones they broadcast over HF-fax, but the gifs are more easily viewed in a browser. To view the tif files, you will have to assign a viewer to your web browser to facilitate the download and manipulation of them once in your machine. We use PaintShopPro by JASC. With PSP you can crop or resize the maps, rotate them to best fit a page for printing, annotate them, and so on. PSP also includes a convenient local browser feature for reviewing what maps you have stored. Also check out new page from Marine Prediction Center and the list of links they provide. This is the agency that actually makes the maps. See more recent notes on these maps in our Pacific NW section.
It appears that this MPC site will evolve into the main link for maritime weather maps. As of June 99, things are changing around a bit at the moment.
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Real time and archived buoy data |
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Florida State University buoy reports Interactive buoy reports from around the country and world with many ocean reports. This is truly one of the most outstanding weather features on the internet. Select the region of interest from main graphic, then from there, select the actual buoy (shown on location in a graphic) then you get full up to date information on what is going on there now. Includes wind speed and direction, gusts, temperature, dew point, wave and swell height and period and more. Also can ask to see recent history, recorded about every hour for the past day. Once you know the id numbers of the buoys you want, you can get the data by gopher which is much quicker. This reference has data archived for 12 hours.
New presentation, direct from National Buoy Center
Just found this or it is new, but it has some improved features over the pioneering work listed above. Try both to see which one you like best. Also we have found cases where the data are at this link, but at the same time are reported as missing from the above link.
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FAQ Satellite Imagery Page A list of questions and answers (Frequently Asked Questions, FAQ) about weather and other uses of satellite imagery. The list is also available here.
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Mother of all US Satellite Image Sources Quite literally... this is where they come from. The site is complex to use, but there are many Help functions available. Later we hope to return here and add specific instructions for getting specific products. |
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Ocenography resources Mostly valuable for finding currents. Gulf stream, etc. This is a link to a list of such sites for real time and background information. |
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Modern Marine Weather Our textbook has an extensive section on this most valuable wind resource. |
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online and email source We have compiled all of the links to the best presentation of this important data, as well as set up a way to get parts of it delivered to you by email underway. |
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REMARKABLE MODERN PILOT CHART This site has archived QuikSCAT winds over many years and made interactive pilot charts from them. This is THE place to plan a sailing route. |
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Tutorial on QuikSCAT Excellent step by step tutorial on this important source of ocean winds. This data is no longer available since we lost the satellite, but the new OSCAT scatterometer works the same way, not to mention that we still use QuikSCAT data as the basis of the best climatic winds, and there are archived data for analyzing past events. |
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SST Sea surface temperatures (all Pacific and western Atlantic, N and S) There are also extensive SST links (with Gulf Stream analysis) at Marine Prediction Center.
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Ship reports and observations |
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Oceanweather, Inc A neat graphic presentation shows where the recent ship reports are located. Click a map to see the station models. Sometimes the data are too dense to actually read the index numbers, but still valuable in showing what's there. They also provide worldwide significant wave height distributions updated daily. |
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Ship Reports NDBC Ship Reports page |
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from NWS So many links, so little time... This is the quickest way we have found to get straight to the NWS data for a specific town in the US. Enter city, state in the top left search window on this site. |
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