Coastal Brief

About this map test

The public Coastal Brief site will use a Leaflet map built only from NOAA and OpenStreetMap data, plus an optional weather radar layer from WeatherAPI.com (NOAA MRMS tiles for the United States). Windy was dropped because its free embed terms do not allow commercial or ad-supported sites.

• The map stays below this text on a phone so it does not load until you scroll to it.
• Map layers are small chips along the side of the map. Wind and waves are color washes over a street-style map or a NOAA nautical chart. Water temperature and radar each take over the map (they replace the base, and only one of those two can be on at a time). Radar still loads only when you open that chip. Chips for depth contours, chlorophyll, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and AIS heat zones are visible but dimmed until a free, verified data source is wired; they make no requests.
• Radar tiles load only when you open the Radar layer, loop the last six scans, and reuse cached frames in the browser. Forecast frames (the next-hour nowcast) are labeled as forecast.
• Condition cards are live buoy and tide readings (converted to knots and °F). Use Tide search above for high and low times at a place you plan to go. The colored map washes are forecasts or satellite estimates, not the same as the buoy numbers.
• This is a layout and endpoint test, not the finished website. It is not weather, surf, or fishing advice.

Why the map is down here: on a phone about 390 pixels wide and 844 tall, this block is meant to push the map below the first screen. The map scripts and tiles load only when the map section enters view.