Water Temperature at Depth
HYCOM's forecast temperature at a depth you pick, surface down to 1312 feet. Step the depth slider to find where the colour changes fastest — that is the thermocline.
Updates daily; forecast in 3-hour steps
More detail
The thermocline is the top of the cold water, where the warm surface water gives way to the cold water below.
The forecast comes from HYCOM (U.S. Navy model), and RipIQ puts it on the map. It reaches from the surface to 1,312 feet (400 meters).
Use it to see how deep the warm water runs at a spot, and how that changes across your grounds. Treat it as the shape of the water column, not as an exact reading. Each value covers a square about 5 nautical miles across over three hours. The layer covers the Gulf of America, the East Coast and Baja.
A deep frame can look like one flat color: the default color range, 66.2 °F to 86.0 °F, is set for the surface. Reset or widen the range in Layer Settings after a big change of depth. The crosshair readout gives the number whatever the color.
How fresh it is. The model starts one new run a day, and the newest run normally started between one and four days ago. There are eight frames a day, three hours apart, and the days after the run date are forecast, up to 7 days ahead.
How it relates to the other layers. Thermocline Depth finds the thermocline for the whole map at once and shows it as one depth per spot. Use it to see where the thermocline is shallow or deep, and use this layer to check how sharp the change really is. Sea Surface Temperature is the same forecast at the surface on a wider color scale, so compare the crosshair numbers between the two, not the colors. Salinity at Depth is the same forecast for salt, down to 656 feet.
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 per grid cell; from the surface to 1,312 feet (400 meters) |
| Where it covers | Gulf of America, East Coast and Baja. Outside the regions the map shows the chart alone; the layers stop at the region's edge. |
| How far back you can look | 8 days back |
| How far forward you can look | Up to 7 days ahead, as a forecast |
| Observed or modeled | Modeled. It never goes blank for cloud |
| What you see on screen | Fahrenheit by default, Celsius if you switch |
Source: the HYCOM model.