Diving Conditions

[tunataco]

What do divers use for diving conditions and weather? I have used a few apps and websites, but I haven't found one that shows everything (swell, viz, weather, maps). What do you use? I know it is probably hard to calculate accurately, but visibility is pretty important to me. Thanks

 

[Bill McIntyre]

This is an international forum so I would think the answers would vary a lot depending on what part of the world they come from. I'm in Southern California and until I quite diving a couple of years ago, I got a lot of use out of Fishdope.com. I think it cost $199/year. If you go to the web site you can see the things it offers, but I found the charts with sea surface temperatures and chlorophyll very useful. The higher the chlorophyll the higher the plankton level and the lower the visibility. If you're diving from the beach it's not so useful because currents and conditions can change rapidly. But if you're planning a 30 mile trip to Catalina or a 50 mile trip to San Clemente, it can save you a lot of gas money if the chart says the vis sucks out there. Sometimes if I was planning an open water trip, I might use the charts to find where there were temp/chlorophyll breaks. Sitting at my computer the night before the trip I can run the cursor out to the the likely looking spots and then copy the lat/long to put in my GPS the next day. And the site also gave fish reports with coordinates. Take a look. It was definitely worth the money to me.

There is also a free version called Tempbreak that just doesn't have quite as many whistles and bells.

 

[tunataco]

There are a ton of factors that affect vis, but yes your region dictates the max vis you are likely to see. What region are you looking to dive?