Surface Convergence
ProWhere forecast surface water is squeezing together (red) or spreading apart (blue). Squeezing is where weed, foam and bait collect — and a mostly white map on a quiet day is normal.
Updates daily; forecast in 3-hour steps
More detail
What you see. Read the color and the pattern, not the number. In the blue, where the water spreads apart, it carries floating things away.
How to use it. A red patch or streak that holds across several frames counts for more. Tide and drift move the pattern between frames. Use a red patch that lasts to choose where to look, then find the weed line on the water. In Layer Settings you can change the Colormap, the Range and the Opacity.
How it relates to the other layers. FSLE 7-day follows the water back over seven days to trace the lines where drifting things gather, while Surface Convergence shows the squeeze at one moment. Use this layer to see what the flow is doing in a given three hours, and use FSLE 7-day for the steadier lines built up over a week. Retention Zones shows where the water is slack, Currents shows how fast it moves, and Onshore Current Advection shows whether it pushes up the slope.
Who makes it. RipIQ makes this layer itself from the forecast surface currents of HYCOM (U.S. Navy model). The layer covers the Gulf of America, the East Coast and Baja.
Its limits. It is blank within about 1.25 nautical miles of shore. It is surface only. The forecast behind it has about 5 nautical miles of real detail, so a red patch is a broad zone. There are eight frames a day, three hours apart. The newest frame is from a run started between one and four days ago, and the time slider reaches up to 7 days ahead as a forecast.
When it looks blank. White is water that is neither squeezing nor spreading. If open water shows no color at all, not even white, write to support@ripiq.com.
The numbers
| How often it updates | Once a day, as 8 frames three hours apart |
| How fresh it usually is | The newest frame is from a run started between one and four days ago |
| How detailed it is | About 5 nautical miles of real detail |
| Where it covers | Gulf of America, East Coast and Baja, minus a band of about 1.25 nautical miles along every coast |
| How far back you can look | 8 days back |
| How far forward you can look | Up to 7 days ahead, as a forecast |
| Goes blank under cloud? | Never |
| Observed or modeled | Calculated by RipIQ from a model field |
| What you see on screen | Red is water squeezing together, blue is water spreading apart, white is neither. The number behind the color is a rate per second |
Source: computed by RipIQ from HYCOM model surface currents.