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Service details

Our OceanConnect™ service is an easy-to-use, powerful, cloud based tool for discovering and exploring ocean conditions along the coast of British Columbia and beyond - from Northern California to south-western Alaska. It is free, requiring no login or registration and is fully supported and maintained by the Hakai Institute. The service provides an ocean information service building upon one of the Hakai Institute's missions; to provide access to ocean data. The link to access the service is very easy to remember – it is just oceanconnect.ca.

Useful ocean information

The service provides six primary data types, all current and with forecast information up to a day and a half into the future. Our data is sourced from advanced numerical models:

  • CIOPS-Salish Sea: Developed by Susan Allen's group at the University of British Columbia, with a 500m resolution, covering the Salish Sea region.
  • CIOPS-West: Developed by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) in collaboration with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), with a 2km resolution, covering the remaining coverage area.
  • HRDPS: With a 2.5km resolution, this model provides data on waves, air temperature, and wind.

The CIOPS models deliver data on sea surface temperature, surface currents, and tidal height. All models are supported and served by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).

Data Types Available: - Sea Surface Temperature - Surface Currents - Tidal Height: Sourced from a combination of model data and station data provided by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). - Wind and Air Temperature: From the high-resolution forecast model run by ECCC. - Waves: The wave forecasts are forced by the output from the HRDPS model but are run as a separate model as part of the Regional Deterministic Wave Prediction System, operated by ECCC, using WaveWatch III. - Buoy Data: From buoys operated by ECCC and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the USA. - Weather Station Data: From various weather stations throughout the region. - Camera Data: Real-time data from coastal and inland cameras.

Serving ocean-users

This service is intended to meet the needs of a wide range of those working or playing on the ocean or simply interested in ocean conditions. We expect that it will find many different uses including boaters, fishers, kayakers, surfers, ship operators, ocean swimmers, aquaculture growers, sea plane operators and others. All those with an interest in ocean conditions.

Your feedback matters

We encourage you to share the service with your friends and colleagues; our goal is to support anyone with an interest in ocean conditions. We would be happy to hear about your use of the service. What information is most useful to you? How has the information we provide helped you? We would also be happy to hear your suggestions for further expansion of this application. Please use our feedback form to provide constructive feedback to our team.