Tide and Weather Site

allene222 · #1 (**permalink**) 06-02-2011

A few months ago this group helped me with the beta version of my weather and tide page. Now that it is sailing season, I wanted to let people know about the site again. It has been well received. Woodboat forum even gave it a sticky for a while.

L-36 Weather and Tide is a one page easy to set up weather and tide page for sailors. It has localized 7 day weather and wind point forecasts, marine weather (2 or 3 areas), broader area discussion, buoy reports from all active nearby buoys (and ships optionally), a weather map, two satellite images, weather radar (2 stations overlaid), wind reports from ports stations and from the local airport along with wind forecast maps. The airport wind is organized so that it is easy to see what happened the previous 3 days at any given time. There are tide tables and graphs for the closest tide and current stations. Everything is on one page. The site is US only.

It is easy to set up. You enter your location as a zip code, tide station, or city and state. The next page gives a clickable map and with that click the entire site is set up. Most sections are editable if you want to customize the section. Most people use the standard settings. If you want to see tides for just Saturday and Sunday, there is a weekend mode. There is also the option to set the tide graph to a real time ports display that can even be set to show lake levels for the Great Lakes. You can edit the point forecasts to give two reports if you are planning a trip and want to see the weather at ends of the trip.

The site is free and will always be free. L-36 Weather and Tide

CalebD · #2 (**permalink**) 06-02-2011

I've got to say that your website is quite cool.
It looks to me as though you are mining a lot of data from NOAA and its subsidiary organizations.
Will your website work for our SN friends in Canada, eh? or Oz? or Balbraggin, Ireland?

allene222 · #3 (**permalink**) 06-02-2011

The site is US only but will work in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The data is from NOAA, PORTS, X-tide, National Data Buoy Center, but basically all NOAA as you said. I change units from meters per second to knots and stuff like that. I also decode some of the station numbers. The point forecast comes from the NOAA SOAP server so is not from a web site. I create the point forecast wind graphs from the SOAP data. Whenever possible the data comes from ftp servers and such rather than from web pages. There is a lot going on to create a page.

CalebD · #4 (**permalink**) 06-02-2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by allene222

The site is US only but will work in Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
...
There is a lot going on to create a page.

I can tell that a lot is going on to mine all that info to a single page.

Did any of the Ozzies or Canucks on the WBF ask you to create a version for them? I'd think it would be difficult to implement an international version but perhaps not impossible?

I like it. I like it a lot. Keep up the good work!

allene222 · #5 (**permalink**) 06-02-2011

I could do a Canadian version and might if the site proves popular enough. Canada has similar data although I have not looked in detail. Some of the NOAA data covers Canada as well, like the satellite and weather maps. But for now, it is US only. I edited my post to add the US only note.

williamkiester · #6 (**permalink**) 06-02-2011

This site is awesome. I keep bumping into the limitations of the NOAA site. This puts it all together well. Will recommend it to other sailors. Good luck with it all. Cheers.

CalebD · #7 (**permalink**) 06-10-2011

Would it be possible to include an Astronomy section that would include the phase of the moon, declination and apogee/perigee info?
I suppose info on the other planets could be included but the moon is perhaps the most important because of it's effect on tides and currents.
The L-36.com website is extremely comprehensive and useful otherwise.
Thanks for creating it and sharing.

allene222 · #8 (**permalink**) 06-10-2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by CalebD

Would it be possible to include an Astronomy section that would include the phase of the moon, declination and apogee/perigee info?
I suppose info on the other planets could be included but the moon is perhaps the most important because of it's effect on tides and currents.
The L-36.com website is extremely comprehensive and useful otherwise.
Thanks for creating it and sharing.

The moon phase in on the right on the first line where the date is. If you hover over it you can see more information about it: phase, waning or waxing, and days in the cycle. The little picture is accurate (there are 30 pictures and each one represents a different phase). The percent illumination is written out just to the left of the picture.

Allen

CalebD · #9 (**permalink**) 06-11-2011

D'oh!
I should have figured that you probably already thought of that. So much info on one page and I overlooked the phases of the moon.
The phase of the moon indicates how close the moon is to the earth but the moon's declination (N or S or Equator) is not apparent to a dope like me.
Great weather portal for US waters and nice work. NOAA should hire you as a consultant.

LinekinBayCD · #10 (**permalink**) 06-11-2011

allene222 Great site. I have it saved on my on the desk top and iphone. Have you thought about creating an app for the iphone using the same data? I could see paying a couple of bucks for it no problem.