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The Main Page

When you first get into the main page, you see a map of the entire forecast region. By clicking on this map, you can jump to your area of interest.

When you jump to a region, we save a cookie on your computer for your area of interest. For the remainder of the session (in other words, as long as you are running the web browser) every time you come back to the forecast page, you will automatically jump to that view. We feel this makes sense for most users, who are in a particular region (such as the New Jersey Coast) and want to see that region.

You can also click on the bottoms along the top of the screen and view the present conditions of wind, water temperature, salinity, etc..

Present Conditions

Viewing present conditions shows you a colormap of the model results for the current hour, where data replaces and corrects model values where available.

We are currently displaying water elevation, but you must realize that we do not have all stations tied in to a datum, and so we really do not know exactly what MLLW should be. DO NOT use the depths as equivalent to MLLW, and do not use these numbers for navigation. This is for comparative purposes only (for now).

	Symbol Meaning lit red buoy red buoy, unlit lit green buoy green buoy, unlit non-navigational yellow buoy (for racing, scientific research, etc) (unlit) non-navigational yellow buoy (for racing, scientific research, etc) Fairway buoy Lighthouse A point of interest An instrument package deployed by Stevens An instrument package deployed by a Stevens partner, eg NOAA, Rutgers A location where we report model timeseries forecasts Wind Barbs Wind barbs show the direction of the wind and its strength. The direction is always along the main line towards the dot. The flags and barbs indicate the speed. A wind from the Northeast blowing 7.5 meters/second A wind from the Southwest blowing 7.5 meters/second A wind from the West blowing 21 meters/second A complete description of the units is available in the glossary. For any given selection of parameter, you can view your choice in a number of supported units. For the convenience of sailors, we support common nautical measures like knots and feet, for scientists we support metric units, and for the general public we publish temperature in Fahrenheit. Length m = meters ft feet Velocity (speed) m/s = meters/second. Double this to get knots. knots = nautical miles/hour mph = miles per hour kph = kilometers per hour Salinity psu = practical salinity units (related to conductivity as measured on a CTD) PSU are for practical purposes equivalent to ppt (parts per thousand) or 1/10 of a percent. Temperature degrees C Celsius degrees F Fahrenheit Waves There are three relevant measures for waves. The height of the wave is measured peak to trough. The period of the wave is the number of seconds from peak to peak. Longer waves, even if large in amplitude are not typically dangerous to vessels at sea, but as they get shorter and begin to break, they can be a major hazard. The direction of the wave is shown by an arrow. The values on the wave chart are only statistical, and do not forecast individual waves. Significant wave height is a standard benchmark, where the average of the upper third of waves are used, but it is only an average, and waves significantly higher than Hsig can be encountered. Moreover, the images you see are hourly averages. During the course of that hour, wave direction can height can shift substantially. DO NOT USE THE WAVE FORECAST AS AN EXCUSE TO GO OUT IN EXTREME WEATHER!

Using the Control Panel

The control panel allows you to select the area you want to see, view different parameters (the temperature and salinity of the water, the velocity of the water, etc) or alternatively to pick a location and view a graph of that one location over time (timeseries data).

There are several useful features on the control panel. You can zoom in and out by clicking on the magnifying glass, zooming in: and zooming out: .

Using the VCR controls

The data for each hour is available, and you can either step through one hour at a time by pressing forward and backward You can play through the data using the play button and stop at any time using the stop button . The date and time that you are looking at is displayed both in the control panel and above the map in the title text.

If you move the mouse over the map, the location of the cursor will be displayed in latitude and longitude on the control panel.

If you stop moving the mouse over the map, the lat/lon may show up. It's not reliable, but this appears to be a problem with the browser and there is nothing we can do about it. Presumably eventually the problem will be fixed.