Marine forecasts and graphical products by e-mail

This free service is provided by the National Weather Service in Washington as a contribution to Safety of life at Sea.

The service provides the facility to request a forecast or graphic. The requested item is then returned to the sender or a designated recipient by return (usually within an hour, but in practice the reply is usually within minutes).

Keep in mind when using the service at sea via a satellite link that text messages are quite short but graphics (charts) are much larger and therefore would be prohibitively costly at the present time to access in this way. But ashore the transfer of charts by request is simple and quick.

For those in waters around the UK or in the North-East Atlantic the main Shipping Forecast and the High Seas Forecast issued by the Met Office at Exeter can be accessed using this service - see below for details.

A full description of the service is provided by the NWS and it is worth reading that text especially if forecasts for waters outside of the North Atlantic are required.

How to use FTP mail to obtain the text forecasts:

• Ensure that the e-mail is in pure text format - not even text plus HTML
• Address the e-mail to: ftpmail#weather.noaa.gov (replace the # with the usual @)
• In the subject line put anything, suggest the word 'request'
• Text must be typed exactly as indicated since it will be read by a computer
• In typing the text ensure that there no spaces appear at the end of each line.
• The texts below can be copied and pasted into the e-mail
  but still check that no extra characters such as spaces at the end of a line
  and that there is no extra line at the end of the message
• Where the line is cd .. the characters are cd space followed by two full stops

Scripts to use to request forecast text messages and charts relevant to Metarea I
(click here for scripts to obtain forecasts for other areas)

 For a FORECAST TEXT issued by the Met Office the following script in the e-mail:

open iwin.nws.noaa.gov
cd data
cd text
cd NNNNNN
get EGRR.TXT
quit

  Replace NNNNNN with the text below depending on the forecast required

  NNNNNN = FPUK71   requests the Shipping Forecast issued by the Met Office Exeter
   NNNNNN = FQNT21   requests the High Seas forecast for the North-East Atlantic
   NNNNNN = WONT54   requests the latest Storm Warning for the North-East Atlantic
   Note that there must be no spaces after each instruction and no signature text at the end.

For example, to request the Shipping Forecast (FPUK71) and the High Seas Bulletin (FQNT21)
use the following script (you can select and copy the script and paste into your e-mail):

open iwin.nws.noaa.gov
cd data
cd text
cd FPUK71

get EGRR.TXT
cd ..
cd FQNT21
get EGRR.TXT
quit

NB: Ensure that there are no spaces at the end of the lines when inserted into the e-mail message and
also note that cd .. is cd then a space followed by two full stops!

If CHARTS  are requested keep in mind that they are in 'tiff' format and are some 70kbytes. The downloading of such large files at sea can be expected to be costly. However, ashore it may be a useful way of accessing the charts via e-mail.

The script to access the charts prepared at the UK Met Office are:

open
cd fax
get NNNNNN.TIF
quit

Values of NNNNNN.TIF

   For the  latest MSLP analysis type  :   PPVA89.TIF
   For the  24-hour forecast chart type:   PPVE89.TIF
   For the  36-hour forecast chart type:   PPVG89.TIF
   For the  48-hour forecast chart type:   PPVI89.TIF
   For the  60-hour forecast chart type:   PPVJ89.TIF
   For the  72-hour forecast chart type:   PPVK89.TIF
   For the  84-hour forecast chart type:   PPVL89.TIF
   For the  96-hour forecast chart type:   PPVM89.TIF
   For the 108-hour forecast chart type:   PPVN89.TIF
   For the 120-hour forecast chart type:   PPVO89.TIF
   For the 132-hour forecast chart type:   PPVP89.TIF

Note that the analysis and 24-hour forecasts are available four times a day,
the 36/48/60/72-hour forecast are available twice a day (after 0700 and 1900UTC),
the 84/108/132-hour forecasts once a day, available approximately mid morning,
and the 96/120-hour forecasts once a day, available after 2300UTC

Also note that the get command can be repeated in the same message to obtain several charts (each chart is about 70kB). For example, to request the latest analysis, the 24-hour and the 48-hour forecast MSLP charts the following script would be used (as above, the following script can be copied and pasted into the e-mail, but ensure that there are no spaces at the end of each line):

open
cd fax
get PPVA89.TIF
get PPVE89.TIF
get PPVI89.TIF
quit

To obtain an overview of the service by e-mail the script is:

help

Reply to be sent to another recipient other than the one sending the e-mail

First line of the script to read:

reply-to e-mail address of recipient

e.g.

reply-to lmjm@server.little.ac.uk