(March 27, 2014) – The highly anticipated NOAA forecasts for the coastal East Pacific are now available on an experimental basis. As reported by the Southbound Evening Net.

Published 11 years ago, updated 5 years ago

SailMail Association is now distributing them via SailDocs.

For the new process, go to

http://southboundnet.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/how-to-get-noaa-forecast-from-saildocs/

A map of the forecast zone is included, as well as a form you can use to provide feedback. Your comments will be forwarded to NOAA.

Please note that the forecasts are labelled EXPERIMENTAL during this trial period. NOAA forecaster Jeffrey Lewitsky adds that there could be stability issues in the process:

“Also, please note that until these become operational if there are any technical issues (e.g. the computer running the products goes down over a weekend, etc) that they may become unavailable until the problem could be fixed.”

“The forecasts are updated every 6 hours – 230am PDT, 830am PDT, 230pm PDT, and 830pm PDT.

The 5-day forecast will be broken down into 12 hour forecast periods for the first 60 hours, then into 24 hour forecast periods for Days 3-5. At a minimum, we will provide A range of Winds (e.g. NW to N Winds 10 to 15 KT) and Seas (e.g. Seas 3 to 5 FT building to 4 to 6 FT late), and weather conditions (e.g. Scattered Showers and Isolated Thunderstorms). There are plans to provide more detailed wave information (swell directions, wave periods, etc.).”