tpbrady
Guru
I have pretty much given up on forecasts from any source in SE Alaska. The NWS uses the same models as most other services and keep trying to forecast weather in small geographical area rather than a zone. That's why I don't use their web products for marine forecasts as they are graphics based, take a lot of cellular data, and generally don't make much sense in the area where I am looking. NWS will give a forecast just outside the Wrangell Harbor that is doom and gloom, when in fact the forecast is for Sumner Strait in general. They just make it seem like it is for the area in front of the Wrangell Harbor. I generally kind of cobble together my own forecast based on the text forecasts. The texts are the only thing that works when you 2 bars on your cell phone. You have to search for the link to this on the main NWS site, it's not on the Alaska region site. The forecasts in each of the NOAA marine zones matches with the zones broadcast on weather radio combined with observations. If NOAA would just broadcast observations in geographical order north to south or south to north rather then separating them into groups of observation sources (buoys, fixed sites, and other sites such as airports) things would be a little easier. However, it doesn't matter much if NOAA won't fix their weather radio sites so we don't have holes in VHF coverage, 4 of 10 remote sites in SE Alaska are off the air now including Cape Fanshaw which has been off the air for almost a year. It seems they would rather spend money on fast RIBs to catch fisheries violators than keep the radios working.
