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ocean currents and prevailing winds

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#1
natcase

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For a custom client we're doing a quick generalized map for, I'm looking for December ocean currents and prevailing winds in the northeast Pacific (Hawaii to Seattle, basically). I have a lot of atlas-type illustrations, but can find no GIS data—no, that's not right, the data I find is WAY too detailed for my purposes. Any thoughts? I'm wondering if there's point data for wind, and maybe generalized line data for currents somewhere. I could just resort to tracing an atlas map, but if the data's out there easily found...
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#2
Jimbo

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Have you checked out the NOAA site?
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#3
natcase

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Have you checked out the NOAA site?

I did, and what I could find were extremely detailed survey data (there was a global survey of currents in the early part of this decade, which generated a lot of detailed data, for example). Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. It certainly was surprising not to see "consumer level" information easy to hand, but then currrents are a pretty diffuse phenomenon...
Nat Case
Head of Production, Hedberg Maps
, Minneapolis, MN USA
maphead.blogspot.com
"Life's too short for bad maps"

#4
Charles Syrett

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A few years back I had to create a small map showing currents as they were on a specific time period in an area from Hawaii to Fiji. I used a very dandy little map engine here: http://www.oscar.noaa.gov/datadisplay/ Maybe this will work for your ocean currents. I wasn't asked for winds, so didn't research that....

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Have you checked out the NOAA site?

I did, and what I could find were extremely detailed survey data (there was a global survey of currents in the early part of this decade, which generated a lot of detailed data, for example). Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. It certainly was surprising not to see "consumer level" information easy to hand, but then currrents are a pretty diffuse phenomenon...



#5
frax

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Nat - I saw this e-mail recently, but I haven't evaluated the links, maybe you could get some pointers from that? http://pete.uri.edu/...&...;T=0&P=1855
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#6
natcase

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A few years back I had to create a small map showing currents as they were on a specific time period in an area from Hawaii to Fiji. I used a very dandy little map engine here: http://www.oscar.noaa.gov/datadisplay/ Maybe this will work for your ocean currents. I wasn't asked for winds, so didn't research that....

That is seriously cool. Perfect. Thanks!
And thanks, Frax, for the link too!
Nat Case
Head of Production, Hedberg Maps
, Minneapolis, MN USA
maphead.blogspot.com
"Life's too short for bad maps"

#7
frax

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Note that that oscar/noaa link is only for surface currents.
Hugo Ahlenius
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