THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 12, 1994 TAG: 9409120057
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Doppler radar and other sophisticated measuring instruments have led to advances in forecasting in recent years, but even with these improvements the best weather information often comes from a pair of eyes.
That's the opinion of the National Weather Service, whose forecasters hope to improve that agency's marine weather predictions by involving northeastern North Carolina anglers.
Weather forecasters in Hatteras and Newport are trying to recruit anglers from Virginia south to New River Inlet to report actual weather conditions along the state's coast, through the Marine Reporting Network, or MAREP, a network of sports and commercial anglers.
The project's timing coincides with recent technological developments that make contacting the weather service easier as well as a reorganization in the agency that will mean increased marine weather forecasting duties, according to Wally DeMaurice, who is in charge of the National Weather Service office in Cape Hatteras.
``With the advent of cellular telephones, it's such an easy thing for the fisherman to do,'' he said. ``This is an idea whose time has come.''
This latest effort to establish a marine weather reporting network also comes at a time when the weather service offices in eastern North Carolina are changing. Marine forecasts - which now cover weather in the sounds and at sea - will be expanded to 100 miles offshore and will be issued out of the weather service office in Newport near Morehead City, DeMaurice said.
Modeled after reporting networks for airplane pilots, MAREP involves anglers and other boat captains who contact the National Weather Service with information about the weather they're experiencing - particularly if those conditions are worse than predicted.
Under the program, volunteer weather observers contact the weather service by cellular telephone or by radio to the Coast Guard for relay to the weather service.
Volunteers provide information of use to the National Weather Service in its marine forecast - including seas, wind direction and speed, overall weather and a general location of the report. ``We're not after trade secrets,'' DeMaurice said. ``Just a report of conditions and a general location, such as 10 miles southwest of Hatteras.''
Weather service officials will meet with anglers later this month in Hatteras to discuss the program.
A network of volunteer observers would help the weather service augment its marine forecasts in one of the most volatile areas of the coast, DeMaurice said.
Currently. the National Weather Service updates its two-day marine forecast at least four times each day, with additional updates as needed.
Generally, the information for these forecasts comes from radar and observations from a series of weather buoys off Chesapeake, Diamond Shoals and Cape Lookout - about 13 miles off the coast - and buoys about 130 miles offshore.
But most of these readings miss information on conditions in the Gulf Stream, the current of warm water that flows off the coast of North Carolina before heading northeast to Europe, DeMaurice said.
Under certain conditions, seas can be very calm near shore but heavy in the Gulf Stream.
This leaves information gaps, and in issuing its marine forecasts, the weather service has to make assumptions about conditions - assumptions that could be wrong, DeMaurice said.
``We don't know if they're good forecasts or bad forecasts,'' he said.
About three years ago, the weather service tried a similar project with the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, which provided about two weather reports a day from charter boats during the summer. by CNB