Marine Forecasts for Maltese Islands now available
Are you interested to know how the sea currents and sea temperatures around the Maltese Islands will look like next weekend ? Then go on reading this message.
Since February this year, the Physical Oceanography Unit at the IOI-Malta Operational Centre (University of Malta) has been publishing marine forecasts for the Malta Shelf Sea area. Just hook-up to our webpage at http://www.capemalta.net/MFSTEP/results.html . Refer to the attached picture which shows how to access the forecast.
Marine forecasts are useful for many purposes. Besides leisure activities, the ability to anticipate marine conditions can benefit a multitude of other applications such as, search and rescue, safer navigation, fisheries, research, coastal management, tracking marine pollution, etc.
The PO-Unit runs this automated forecasting system in pre-operational mode on a weekly basis (Thursday to Sunday). Forecasts are presented in the form of 3hr. averaged maps of Temperature, Salinity and Velocity fields and includes animation fields that combine the forecasts of these parameters for the full period, thus giving a better visualisation of the variability.
Another feature introduced recently consists of a flash animation for sea temperature taken at selected positions around the Maltese Islands. Information is provided through the interactive selection of monitoring points on a map giving access to forecasted sea surface temperature and vertical temperature profiles. This provides specific information on sea temperature at key areas like ports, touristic areas, etc.
Since February this year, the Physical Oceanography Unit at the IOI-Malta Operational Centre (University of Malta) has been publishing marine forecasts for the Malta Shelf Sea area. Just hook-up to our webpage at http://www.capemalta.net/MFSTEP/results.html . Refer to the attached picture which shows how to access the forecast.
Marine forecasts are useful for many purposes. Besides leisure activities, the ability to anticipate marine conditions can benefit a multitude of other applications such as, search and rescue, safer navigation, fisheries, research, coastal management, tracking marine pollution, etc.
The PO-Unit runs this automated forecasting system in pre-operational mode on a weekly basis (Thursday to Sunday). Forecasts are presented in the form of 3hr. averaged maps of Temperature, Salinity and Velocity fields and includes animation fields that combine the forecasts of these parameters for the full period, thus giving a better visualisation of the variability.
Another feature introduced recently consists of a flash animation for sea temperature taken at selected positions around the Maltese Islands. Information is provided through the interactive selection of monitoring points on a map giving access to forecasted sea surface temperature and vertical temperature profiles. This provides specific information on sea temperature at key areas like ports, touristic areas, etc.
We are planning in the near future to extend the forecast so as to cover the full week. We are persistently striving to improve the forecast and your feedback would be very much of help to validate and assess the skill of the system.
If you wish to furthur avail of meteo-ocean services from other local and Mediterranean agencies please take a look at our Malta Page on Operational Oceanography ( http://www.capemalta.net/partnerpage/index.html ) which provides a one-stop portal to a range of additional products including atmospheric and sea wave forecasts.
To learn more about us, about our activities, follow interesting events and news items related to the sea, please visit our main website at http://www.capemalta.net.