Atlantic Surface Currents

[Sandyman]

Found this website that I thought might be of interest. Parts of it are still under construction but still some
very good info & interesting reading.

http://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/atlantic/atlantic.html

 

[GHA]

Interesting, ta for the link

 

[oldvarnish]

Fascinating. Thanks for that Sandyman

 

[VO5]

A very useful and informative site. Thanks for the link.

 

[AndrewB]

The problem is that currents are not always in the same place, nor are they constant in strength.

Yachties need information on currents both for general passage planning and for routing during a voyage. There are many sources of information on the general patterns, not least of which are the monthly routing charts for the various oceans. I guess it adds to that to have the summary information, animations and academic references given by this website. However, I was disappointed that it is not moving towards providing forecasts.

For example the US Coast Guard forecast gives daily forecasts of the position of the Gulf Stream, crucial for a good passage from North America to Europe. There are often giant back-eddies surrounding the Gulf Stream which will seriously impede progress, but don't of course show on a chart of averages.

(There are similar forecasts for the Agulhas Current and maybe others).

 

[Artic Warrior]

Mmmmm good to see links like that,,,,interesting

 

[Roberto]

providing forecasts.

Hello Andrew,
you may know that already, anyway, current forecasts can be had in grib form as well (usual email request), from saildocs servers for RTOFS model, and Meteo France Navimail for Mercator model. Horizon up to a few days. IIRC the model is run 1-2 times a week only and they give daily forecasts for the few following days


This is an RTOFS for Florida (Viewfax dreadful graphics)




This is from Mercator, roughly same area


regards
r