Fishing Status website

[mrbrklyn]

http://fishingstatus.com/tabid/61/indexid/219707/Default.aspx

what exactly is this site doing?  It is pulling data from radar and sonar?

[Tightlines667]

No.  They are analyzing topex altimetry (sea surface height), sea surface temp, chlorophyll a & b, sea colorimitry, subsurface derived temps/thermocline,  (all satelite derived), and bath charts to predict good fishing areas/times.  I think there are 3 seperate services that I know on the east coast, at least 2 in AK, 1 in PAC NW, 1 in central/S.central PAC that I know of that offer this service.  The service is expensive and can be a subscription, or pay for individual charts.  All of the data is pulled from our NOAA satellites and some of this data is already available to the public in near real time, some of it is aggregated time-series data, and some is resolution limited, software is required (some avail for free) to view many of the charts (ESP. Higher resolution stuff), and some of the data requires permission and a user agreement ensuring that it will be used for a specific (non commercial) basis (I.e research, or teaching).  I have quite a bit of experience looking at this stuff and it can be really useful in finding oceanographic features (upwelling events, counter clockwise Edie's, clockwise circle currents, thermocline abnormalities, areas of high productivity, temp/current breaks, etc... But many times there is no clear smoking gun either.  Search through the NOAA remote sensing data sites for your region and you might be surprised what is available for free.  Commercial fishermen must pay more and go through a specific service to obtain high res images (generally speaking).