QuikSCAT Global Weather Data

Here is an interesting weather data website www.manati.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/quikscat/ showing wind strengths globally. It is not a forecast and the data can be up to 22 hours previous, depending on any changes in the hourly updates.

Just click on the ocean area you are interested in and it will zoom in giving you the wind feathers in colour.

Ocean Surface Winds Derived from the SeaWinds Scatterometer.

This page includes CURRENT DATA. For previous day's data, click here.

The following map displays the ocean surface winds at a 10m height from today's satellite passes as processed by NOAA/NESDIS, from near real-time data collected by NASA/JPL's SeaWinds Scatterometer aboard the QuikSCAT.


For additional information about SeaWinds or QuikSCAT, please visit JPL's Scatterometer web site. The current empirically derived model function being used by to relate normalized radar cross-section with wind speed and direction is referred to as QSCAT1. The map below has been divided into 30x20 degree bins for closer examination between latitudes 80N to 80S and longitudes 180W to 180E. Just click on the desired geographical location and hopefully a closer look will be provided. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

Please Note: While these wind data are obtained from the operational data stream available at NOAA/NESDIS, this web site is not maintained with 24x7 support.

The Multidimensional Histogram (MUDH) rain flag is being used at this time.The wind vector retrievals thought to be rain contaminated are colored in black. While not perfect, the MUDH rain flag appears to mark many of the suspect vectors in regions of probable precipitation, epecially in the tropical latitudes.Rain can contaminate the wind retrievals, especially in situations with moderate to heavy rain rates.Please read the product release notes and this note concerning the near real-time QuikSCAT wind products.

Updates hourly with any available new data.The images may contain data up to 22 hours previous from update time. Details of orbit data files that go into the plots can be found here.

reproduced courtesy Paul Chang NOAA


You can read more about weather and reading local conditions when cruising, in my ebook 'Voyage of the Little Ship 'Tere Moana' downloadable from my website http://wwwsailboat2adventure.com