High-Water Mystery; nowCOAST; Wetlands Restoration (Making Waves podcast, 9.2.09)
Users can view nowCOAST's ocean and weather information in more ways.
The Office of Coast Survey recently unveiled a new Web service for nowCOAST, a map-based online gateway to ocean and weather observations and forecasts. With the new service, users can view nowCOAST's ocean and weather information from a desktop computer, another mapping Web site, or even a smart phone such as an iPhone or iPod Touch.
Coast Survey has expanded public use of this Web product by enabling Web Map Service (WMS) access to the map layers of nowCOAST. This new service gives users the ability to combine background maps from other sources, such as Google Earth or Google Maps, with maps from nowCOAST to display present or future weather or ocean conditions.
Users can access several new WMS information types including:
Updated at regular intervals throughout the day, nowCOAST displays near real-time weather and ocean surface observations from across the continental U.S. directly on its interactive Web-based map. NowCOAST is designed to be a planning aid to assist recreational and commercial mariners, coastal managers, HAZMAT responders, coastal ocean modelers, and marine educators to discover and display real-time information for their particular needs and geographic areas of interest.