The fishing window

What the chart is doing

One timeline, shared by every layer, for the next 48 or 72 hours. Tide height is the curve in feet above mean lower low water. A few gauges, including the pass and Allanton, publish highs and lows only. Their curve is a smooth sketch through those official times, and the spot page says so. Current is a signed speed in knots: flood (incoming) above the line, ebb (outgoing) below it, diamonds where the prediction crosses slack. Wind is the solid line and gusts are dashed, with arrows pointing downwind. Night is the gray wash. The color band is the score, one block per hour. Drag the chart or the slider and every layer reads out together.

How the points add up

A full hour can earn 100 points. Slack is anything under 0.15 kt. If a spot is missing current or the wind feed fails, those factors are left out and the rest are stretched back to a 0–100 score. The readout says when that happens.

1. Moving water 35 points

   Slack water, under about 0.15 kt, scores near the bottom. Points climb through a half knot and level off around 0.8 to 1.6 kt, a useful push in this bay. Above about 2.4 kt the score eases back: the water is still moving, and it is harder to fish. If the spot prefers incoming or outgoing water, a mismatch multiplies these points by 0.7. “Either” leaves the speed score alone.

2. Wind 25 points

   Light air scores the full 25. Points step down through 8, 12, 16, and 22 mph. Gusts that jump more than 6 mph over the steady wind take a few points off. Each spot has a soft wind limit in its config; sustained wind above that limit costs more. A grass flat uses a lower limit than the pass.

3. Wind vs current 15 points

   Wind direction is where the wind comes from. Current direction is where the water goes. When those headings match, the wind is blowing into the current — wind against the tide — and this factor goes to zero. When the wind runs with the current, it scores the full 15. A crosswind lands in the middle. Under about 0.2 kt the factor sits at a neutral 8, because there is no tide to fight. If either direction is missing, the factor is left out and the score is rescaled.

4. Dawn/dusk 12 points

   Full points at sunrise or sunset, tapering to zero 90 minutes away. Sunrise and sunset come from Open-Meteo for the spot’s weather sample.

5. Pressure 8 points

   Compared with three hours earlier. A gentle fall (about 0.6 to 3 hPa) scores 8. Steady pressure scores 5. A fast fall of 3 hPa or more scores 3. Rising pressure scores 0.

6. Moon 5 points

   New and full moons score the full 5, tapering off over about four days. The phase is computed in your browser from the length of the lunar month. It is a tide-strength hint, not a solunar table.

Spot preferences live in src/data/spots.ts. A mismatch with incoming or outgoing water multiplies the moving-water points by 0.7. Outgoing or incoming is set only where the local consensus is strong or moderate. A weak report does not move the score. The soft wind limit is the sustained speed where that spot starts losing extra wind points. The total is shown as a number out of 100: 0–39 Slow, 40–59 Fair, 60–79 Good, and 80–100 Great.

Where the numbers come from

Your browser asks NOAA CO-OPS and Open-Meteo directly. Both answered with access-control-allow-origin: * when this preview was built, so no proxy and no account are required. Predictions are cached in this browser for 30 minutes. The moon is computed on the device from the length of the lunar month, anchored on the 6 January 2000 new moon. It is about a day of precision, and it is not a solunar table.

Tide stations

• Allanton, East Bay 8729015Allanton, Crooked Island
• East Bay, Goose Point 8729026Goose Point
• Laird Bayou, East Bay 8729045Laird Bayou
• Parker, East Bay 8729084DuPont Bridge
• Lynn Haven, North Bay 8729102Lynn Haven, Bailey Bridge, Upper North Bay
• Panama City 8729108Panama City waterfront
• Courtney Point, St. Andrew Bay 8729132Courtney Point
• New Entrance Channel, St. Andrew Bay 8729136St. Andrew Pass, Shell Island, west tip
• Sulphur Point, Port of Panama City 8729142Hathaway Bridge
• Alligator Bayou, Panama City 8729152Grand Lagoon, Alligator Bayou
• West Bay Creek, West Bay 8729197Long Point, West Bay, West Bay Creek
• Panama City Beach 8729210City Pier, Panama City Beach

Current stations

Each id was confirmed on the NOAA current-prediction list. The bin is the shallowest layer that still showed a real speed range, roughly 3 to 7 feet. If that bin fails, the page retries without a bin. Positive speed is flood. Spots with no honest nearby station leave current out on purpose.

• St. Andrew Bay Entrance SAB0803, bin 9, about 5 ftSt. Andrew Pass, Shell Island, west tip, Grand Lagoon, Alligator Bayou
• Paper Mill SAB0805, bin 16, about 3 ftDuPont Bridge
• Redfish Point SAB0806, bin 9, about 5 ftPanama City waterfront, Lynn Haven, Bailey Bridge
• Courtney Point, 0.75 mi SE of SAB0807, bin 8, about 7 ftCourtney Point
• Bear Point, 0.6 nm E of SAB0809, bin 8, about 4 ftHathaway Bridge
• Long Point, West Bay SAB0812, bin 1, about 4 ftLong Point, West Bay, West Bay Creek

What this is not

It is not a substitute for looking at the water, and it is not a navigation product. Borrowed stations are labeled on the spot: Crooked Island uses Allanton because NOAA has no gauge in St. Andrew Sound, and several creeks show a current station that sits miles down the bay. Sample notes are placeholders. Replace them before you treat this as your own site.

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