(October 17, 2016) – In 2014 the highly anticipated NOAA forecasts for the coastal East Pacific became available on an experimental basis. These products went “live” in June 2016. A survey is now underway to determine whether or not to make these new Offshore Waters Forecasts an official National Weather Service product by the year 2018.

Published 8 years ago, updated 5 years ago

For Pacific Coast Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Columbia and Ecuador

Here is an update on the NOAA EPAC Experimental forecasts for the Pacific Coast from the Mexico/USA border to Ecuador.

First, NOAA went ‘life’ in early June 2016 with these products. Previously the transmissions that you may have seen or received were test products (automated, GRIBs based forecasts produced without human intervention). As of early June 2016, they are now having a forecaster create, QC, and edit as needed every issuance going forward. This includes a tailored synopsis/overview describing any significant weather during the next 5 days.

In addition, they have reformatted their Tropical Weather Discussion for the East Pacific Ocean to include more detailed information relating to the area covered by the Offshore Waters Forecasts (areas within 250mi of the coast).

You can find the latest Tropical Weather Discussion on the web at the following URL: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/MIATWDEP.shtml

This product is also available via saildocs and other such services, although it’s not in the saildocs index yet.

Now that the Offshore Waters Forecasts are officially an experimental product, sailors can also submit a formal survey response at the following url:http://www.nws.noaa.gov/survey/nws-survey.php?code=POWFCST.

Responses from this survey will be what decides the next critical step of whether or not to make these new Offshore Waters Forecasts an official National Weather Service product by the year 2018.

Please pass this information along to your fellow mariners. More responses mean more attention from NOAA to this service, and they have been very responsive to input from the sailing community so far.

For more background on this service, you can review the blog posts at https://southboundnet.wordpress.com/?s=EPAC.

The forecasts are available at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/experimental/epoffshores/data/WRKOFFPZ7 (for Mexico) and http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/experimental/epoffshores/data/WRKOFFPZ8 (for Central America).

Rob

SV Avant

San Blas Mexico

Related content

New NOAA East Pacific Experimental Forecasts now available