FSLE 45-day

More detail

What you see. Bright ridges on a dark map. A ridge is a line where water from different places has been pushed together, so drifting things gather along it, and so does temperature contrast. Brighter is a stronger squeeze. A color means the same thing today as last month.

How to use it. Use a ridge 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 uses the same method on the forecast current from HYCOM (U.S. Navy model) over 7 days. Use FSLE 45-day to see where the lines were measured to be, and use FSLE 7-day for finer detail and the days ahead.

Who makes it. RipIQ makes this layer itself from the satellite-measured current that Currents (DUACS) shows. The layer covers the Gulf of America, the East Coast and Baja.

Its limits. The satellite current behind it shows only features about 95 nautical miles across and larger, so read a ridge as a broad zone. There is one frame a day, and the newest is about a day behind. Recent dates can change. A date more than a week old is settled.

When it looks blank. Blank means there was no answer there; it is normal inshore and along the edges of each area. Dark means the water there has not been squeezed.

The numbers

How often it updates	Once a day, one frame
How fresh it usually is	About one day behind today's date
How detailed it is	The satellite current behind it shows only features about 95 nautical miles across and larger
Where it covers	Gulf of America, East Coast and Baja
How far back you can look	8 days back
Goes blank under cloud?	Never
Observed or modeled	The current is observed by satellite; the ridges are calculated from it
What you see on screen	Bright ridges on a dark map. The number is a rate per day; brighter is a stronger squeeze, and it means the same from day to day

Source: computed by RipIQ from 45 days of DUACS satellite currents (Copernicus).