The NWS over the course of the summer changed all their Alaska websites with a less than stellar result. On the mobile web site (providing text forecasts for the bandwidth challenged), the NWS still refers to the forecast zones, e.g., PKZ036 is Clarence Strait, which matches the way the forecasts and weather is broadcast on VHF radio. The main web pages don't mention forecast zones or even refer to the name commonly used to talk about forecasts, again, using Clarence Strait as an example. Frankly, this smells like a nationwide standardization effort by NWS, designed by someone inside the beltway who has never had to worry about a marine forecast. The worst consequence of this effort was I lost access to the satellite image that told me the most about weather in Alaska. It's gone, where I don't know.
So to answer your question, I don't know at this point, because the NWS has broken what used to work pretty well and Sirius XM doesn't update reliably and the wind forecast is full of errors. I like Windyty, but when cruise ships are in during the summer, their isn't a lot of bandwidth left to retrieve it. That's why I am a big fan of text. If the NWS breaks that again (it was broken for about 3 weeks in the summer with the transition to the new websites), I am going to ask my Senators to send the money to someone else who understands the need.
Tom
