Monterey Sea Conditions
at a Glance

Base page and URLs to Navy W3 data last updated: 9:17am, Friday, February 03, 2012.

This page was done by Chuck Tribolet, but all the data and pictures come from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the U.S. Navy and is excerpted from http://nimbo.wrh.noaa.gov/, http://cdip.ucsd.edu/, and https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/wxmap_cgi/.. If you would like to learn more about how to read this information, see http://www.garlic.com/~triblet/swell/Inet1XMP.html and http://www.garlic.com/~triblet/swell/UPSSwell.pdf.

I also have a North Coast Sea Conditions at a Glance page, and Michael Owens maintains a Central Coast Sea Conditions at a Glance page.

You can click on any of the thumbnails to go directly to the full-size version of that image.

This information should be used to decide whether to go to the ocean. Conditions sometimes change unexpectedly, so you should study the conditions in person and check the latest weather reports before deciding whether to get into the water.

Security Pop-Ups

What's happened is that the Navy has switched from normal http to secure http ("https"), presumably for some degree of assurance that Al Qaeda, or some bored 14-year-old hacker, isn't spoofing the site. The problem is that the U.S. Government is issuing its own https certificates, and operating systems and browsers don't recognize the U.S. Government as a legitimate certificate-issuing authority. Maybe that's good. ;-) But it's a pain.

Mozilla Firefox users have it easy. You will get a pop-up titled: "Website Certified by an Unknown Authority". Just select an option at the bottom, and click OK.

For other browsers, you need to install the certificates. Here's what you do on Windows Using Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Netscape Communicator, go to the following web page: http://dodpki.c3pki.chamb.disa.mil/rootca.html There are four files listed along with instructions. Right click on each of the four files and save them to your computer. Then using Windows Explorer, find each file, right click them and select "Install Certificate". Agree to installing the certificates. Repeat for the remaining three files. Once done, the certificates work for (at least) Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape Communicator, Google Chrome, and Safari.

More Information

For information about Internet resources for the Bay Area diver, see http://www.garlic.com/~triblet/swell/. For information about using GPS for diving in Monterey, see http://www.garlic.com/~triblet/swell/gps.html. For information about the Northern California Underwater Photographic Society (NCUPS), see http://www.ncups.org.

Offshore Coastal and Marine Forecast: Monterey:
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/getcwfzone.php?sid=MTR&zone=PZ560
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/Forecasts/FZUS56.KMTR.html

Short and Long Term Monterey County Surface Forecasts:
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/getzfpzone.php?sid=mtr&zone=caz530

Tides: Monterey Harbor Whaler's Cove, Pt. Lobos Currents: Pt. Pinos

Water Quality: http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/health/beaches/