This is a short guide for long-time users of FishWeather that should help with the transition to the new FishWeather website. If you’re not quite ready to make the transition, the old FishWeather website will be available for a limited time. To use FishWeather from your mobile device, check out m.fishweather.com.
How do I find the 7-Day Computer Forecast Table (aka Meteogram)?
The Computer Forecast Table has been expanded and improved on new FishWeather. From the new homepage, navigate to your region using the drop-down menus, by typing in the search box, or by clicking the world map. You’ll land on the Wind Observations Map, which shows a snapshot of current winds for that area. Click on the map and you’ll see a small box with a preview of data for that spot. Click “7 Day Forecast” to see the 7-day forecast table. Then scroll up and down to see lots more data for that spot.
NEW! Move your mouse across the table for a tooltip with details for that time slot.
NEW! Add more “available models” to the table and see how well they agree (or disagree) in order to get a feel for forecast confidence. Compare models side-by-side with the “display mode” switch.
NEW! Click the date header to get an hour-by-hour forecast (default view is 3-hourly). Use “show additional data” to see other weather parameters like pressure and cloud-cover.
Where is the Wind Forecast Map (and other maps)?
On old FishWeather, there were small thumbnail links along the left-hand side representing different map views. New FishWeather uses the same idea, except the thumbnails are zipped up beneath the map label. Click on the bright map label at the top-left of the map (which says “Wind Observations” by default) and you’ll see a list of many pre-defined map views, along with short descriptions of what they are. Scroll and click around to instantly change the data displayed on the map. There is a legend in the lower right corner of the map, which can be opened and closed to make more room on the map.
NEW! New FishWeather offers improved maps for Radar and Satellite, as well as brand new map types like General Weather, Sea Surface Temperatures, and National Weather Service Marine Forecast Zones (where available). You can also add Nautical Charts as a map layer!
NEW! On the old FishWeather you were limited to a set of pre-defined map types. On new FishWeather, you can completely customize the map to just what you want. Click “customize” in the map header and you’ll see a menu with lots of settings. Play with it as much as you want. Once you customize a map, you’ll see up to two new map views in the map view drop-down labeled, “My Observations” and “My Forecasts”. The stock map views will remain unchanged.
NEW! On old fishweather, our maps were geographically limited to fixed regions within North America. On new FishWeather, the maps are completely dynamic. You can zoom and pan to anywhere in the world using your mouse and the map controls. Old FishWeather displayed about 2000 weather stations. New FishWeather has over 30,000 weather stations! As you zoom in, more detail is displayed. If you see small, square “dots”, those represent weather stations – zoom in to see their data. Once you get the map set just like you want it, click the “Save Map” button in the map header to store it in a favorites profile (see “My FishWeather” below).
NEW! Full Screen map mode. Click the icon in the upper right corner of the map to put the map in full screen mode, giving you a huge interactive map. Click the icon again or hit “escape” to return to normal mode.
NEW! Old FishWeather had some rudimentary map time navigation functionality, but new FishWeather improves on this greatly. A time slider will appear under the date/time label at the top left of many maps. Hover your mouse over the slider and it will reveal a new date/time – click it to load the map for that point in time. Click and drag the white “hours ahead” slider back and forth to animate it. Or, like a movie, just press play to lean back and watch the show.
How about Current Wind Conditions and Wind Graphs?
On old FishWeather, the latest wind speeds and directions were indicated on the Wind Observations map with an arrow marker and numerals; yellow for WeatherFlow stations and white for non-WeatherFlow stations. And the windspeed timeseries graph appeared below the map. On new FishWeather, the map icons are the same (yellow for WeatherFlow stations, white for non-WeatherFlow stations), but we’ve moved the bigger graph to its own page. To get there, simply click one of the markers representing a weather station. A small box will appear with the name, current conditions, and two small graphs (current conditions and next three day forecast) representing wind data at that spot. Clicking almost anywhere in the box will take you to the “more details” page. On that page you’ll find the wind graph at the top, and lots more information below the graph it. Scroll down to see what’s there! You can save that spot to a favorites profile (see “My FishWeather” below).
NEW! Dynamic Graphs. By default the big graph shows Grab the slider window on the small graph below the main graph to move forward and backward in time. Add a timeseries from one or more different models to the graph. You can expand or contract the time steps with the zoome controls.
NEW! We now provide much more info about an individual spot, including a seven day forecast table, nearby tide spots, national weather service forecasts, archived graphs and downloadable data, monthly statistics and wind roses, and more. When you’re looking at the graph, just scroll down and you’ll find lots more stuff.
NEW! Nowcast and Virtual Stations. On old FishWeather you were limited to wind speeds and forecasts from pre-defined spots on the map. On the new FishWeather, clicking *anywhere* on the Wind Observations or Nowcast map view will create a “virtual station” (indicated with a light blue arrow) that includes the estimated windspeed for the past 6 hours as well as a three-day forecast. Clicking on the graph or the “more details” button will take you to more details for that spot. You can save a virtual weather station as easily as a real weather station – you can even give it your own name for it. Virtual stations are experimental, and there is not really a weather station here – here is some more information about the Nowcast map and Virtual stations.
Where are the Human Forecasts (aka Daily Briefings)?
The human forecasts or daily briefings are exactly the same on new FishWeather, but instead of links appearing in the left-hand menu, a “Daily Briefings” button appears on the map any time the map is positioned near a daily briefing region.
What happened to My FishWeather (aka Custom Homepage)?
On old FishWeather you could add spots, maps and tables to a custom homepage called “My FishWeather”. The process was a bit painful though. On new FishWeather you can do the same thing, but it’s much easier: simply click the “favorite” (star) icon anywhere you see it and you’ll be prompted to save that item (map, graph, table, etc.) to a favorites profile. Return to your profile from the “profiles” link at the top of the page.
NEW! You can put everything in a single profile or you can create multiple profiles for various needs (different regions, different races, different seasons, etc.)
Those are some of the differences between features that are common to both old and new FishWeather. There are lots more features on new FishWeather that don’t exist on old FishWeather. We encourage you to explore them all.
There are also a couple of features that have not been ported to new FishWeather yet. Most notably, these include the animated “Wind FlowViz FX” map, the Fish Index in the graph, the “Pressure/Isobar” map, and the “Tidal Currents” map. We are working to add those features this year. In the meantime, you can continue to access these features on the old FishWeather website.
To use FishWeather from your mobile device, check out FishWeather for iPhone/iPad or FishWeather for Android, which use many of the same concepts as the new website.