FORECASTS AND BIG PICTURE

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For the Salish Sea you only need the first three.

1. Forecaster's Discussion Seattle  provides a few unvarnished paragraphs about the big picture and any computer model uncertainties.
    

2. Pacific weather maps: Select the Pacific Marine tab and scroll down to surface maps, current and 24, 48 or 96 hours out from NOAA (computer models plus human review) Note the wind/wave charts are for offshore, they include ocean swell and have no relations to conditions in the Salish Sea or Inside Passage.
    

3. University of Washington local forecast simulation maps, each with a large table of options:
   
   GFS Link has a WRF-GFS 4 km Domain out to 84 hours.  Scroll down to the 4 km Surface and try 10m wind Speed for Western WA which is the tightest coverage of Puget Sound up to Nanaimo.  Select either a LOOP or the forecast hour you would like. (There is a higher resolution 1.3km set which you may want to watch, although it looks ahead only 60 hours and is computed last. (See Salish App below for easier to use presentations combining 1.3 and 4 km results)
   
    

4. Marine forecast text from NOAA as read over the VHF for Washington.  Text forecasts by Environment Canada for British Columbia.
    

5. NDFD forecast grids to 5 km resolution prepared by NOAA regional centers, accessible in XML or graphical form (source for XM and Sirius satellite radio plots).
    

6. Forecast maps of wind, pressure and waves for the world's oceans offering 0.5 degree GFS and some NAM computer models.  Passage Weather 

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