Thermocline Depth
ProThe depth where forecast temperature changes fastest going down — the top of the cold water, in feet. It always returns a number, even where the water is barely layered.
Updates daily; forecast in 3-hour steps
More detail
What you see. It is one number per spot, painted flat on the map. The crosshair readout gives the depth in feet by default, and in meters if you switch in Preferences. The default color range is 82 to 574 feet.
How to use it. See where the thermocline sits and how it changes across your grounds: where it comes up shallow and where it runs deep. Do not set a bait to this number. In Layer Settings you can change the Colormap, the Range and the Opacity.
How it relates to the other layers. Water Temperature at Depth is the forecast this layer is worked out from. Use Thermocline Depth to find where the thermocline is shallow or deep, and Water Temperature at Depth to check how sharp the change really is.
Who makes it. RipIQ makes this layer itself from the forecast temperature at each depth of HYCOM (U.S. Navy model). The layer covers the Gulf of America, the East Coast and Baja.
Its limits. Differences of tens of feet from your sounder are normal. The value can jump one level between frames. In well-mixed water there is no real thermocline, and the layer still gives the steepest point it can find. 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.
The numbers
| How often it updates | 8 frames a day, 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; the deepest possible answer is 1,312 feet (400 meters) |
| Where it covers | Gulf of America, East Coast and Baja only |
| 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 | Calculated by RipIQ, from the temperature profile of HYCOM (U.S. Navy model) |
| What you see on screen | A depth, in feet by default, meters if you switch. The default color range is 82 to 574 feet (25 to 175 meters) |
Source: computed by RipIQ from Water Temperature at Depth (HYCOM model).