King Mackerel
ProIn development: King Mackerel shades the water that is most like the water where kings have been caught, based on temperature, breaks, currents and depth. Its score is a 0 to 100 habitat match. Only a score of 50 and above is painted.
Updates daily; forecast in 3-hour steps
More detail
This species map is in development.
What you see. Choose the species from the Bite Intel button along the bottom of the map. The map is colored from dark blue at 50, through green and yellow, to dark red at 90 and above. On the website the legend shows that color bar and an Opacity slider that fades the map. Switch on Compare species to show more than one species at a time, each in its own color, brighter where the match is higher.
What goes into it. The map weighs surface temperature, temperature and salinity breaks, current speed and where currents squeeze together, how deep the surface water is mixed, oxygen, water-color edges, and bottom depth, each set for king mackerel.
How to use it. Let the map narrow a big piece of water to a few areas, then check those areas on the temperature, water-color and current layers. To see what built the score at one spot, click the map on the website; on the iPhone, put the crosshair on the spot and tap the fish-scale button beside the map. A panel lists each condition with its reading and a rating from Poor to Ideal.
Who makes it. RipIQ builds this map itself, mostly from the HYCOM (U.S. Navy model) forecast and the charted bottom depth, so cloud never blanks it.
Its limits. The map shows water that looks like king mackerel water, not fish. It has eight frames a day, three hours apart, about a week ahead, with about 5 nautical miles of detail, so read areas, not single squares. The map covers the Gulf of America and the East Coast.
The numbers
| How often it updates | Eight frames a day, three hours apart |
| How fresh it usually is | From a forecast run started between one and four days ago |
| How detailed it is | About 5 nautical miles of real detail in the water, finer on the bottom |
| Where it covers | Gulf of America and East Coast |
| Observed or modeled | Modeled |
| What you see on screen | Squares colored from dark blue at 50, through green and yellow, to dark red at 90 and above. Under 50 nothing is painted |
Source: computed by RipIQ from the HYCOM and Copernicus model layers (temperature, salinity, currents, fronts, thermocline, chlorophyll edges) and seafloor depth.