Asia-Pacific ASA
Local Currents Forecasts
The Local Currents Forecast plots show a graphical representation of the predicted water current patterns for a particular instance in time in the future. An example is shown below.
The plot shows a spatial view looking down over the waters between Rottnest and Cottesloe.
The arrows on the plot show the predicted direction, pointing to where the currents are going
towards, and relative speed by the size of the arrow. The overall speed is referenced to a
scale arrow shown over land on Rottnest Island, where the arrow represents a current of 1 knot,
which is roughly half a metre per second, or a little less than 2 km/hr. The blue colouring in
the background of the plot shows relative depth, with lighter blue representing areas that are
more shallow than those shaded with darker blue.
Below the spatial plot there is a suite of information provided. To the left the local time and predicted wind conditions are shown, and then to the right the current and wave conditions predicted for the locations at each of the coloured dots are displayed. Note that the coloured dots are location markers only and the colour coding is not related to the nature of the predicted conditions. These locations are along a direct line from Cottesloe to Rottnest.
