Maritime Weather

GHOST//NET runs a living weather system. It is not random flips between sunny and rainy: a real atmospheric model decides the weather, the jet stream migrates with the calendar, storms form and travel across the map and burn themselves out, and the seasons follow the actual date. If you fish, run a boat, or just want to know whether a storm is coming, this is your guide.

The year, month by month

The server reads the real calendar, and every month is its own weather regime. The jet stream (the high-altitude river that storms ride along) sits far south in winter and migrates north through summer, which moves the whole storm track with it.

Storms move and run their course

Highs and lows form off the west coast and ride the jet stream east across the map. A low brings clouds, rain, and thunderstorms; a high brings clear skies. They spin up, peak, then weaken and slide off the far side on their own. A storm brewing offshore today is a different storm in a different place tomorrow, so it pays to watch where things are heading, not just where they are.

Tropical systems

In the warm months the ocean can spin up tropical systems, in three tiers:

• Tropical Depression: common, breezy and gray with steady rain and choppy water.
• Tropical Storm: fairly common, named, strong wind, heavy rain, and rough seas. Fishing gets dicey.
• Hurricane: rare, the full deal. A wall of rain across the region, fishing shuts down, seek port.

A big system throws rain across its whole side of the map, so even far from the center you will know something major is out there. The closer to the core, the worse it gets, thunder and the heaviest wind right at the middle.

Snow

When a cold month turns cold enough, rain falls as snow and storms become blizzards, heaviest up in the high country. December is a locked white Christmas: it snows across the map all month and clears at the new year.

Reading the weather map

Open your Neural HUD (F1) and select the WEATHER tab for a live map of the whole coast with the weather painted over it:

• Soft color masses are the weather. Clear skies let the map show through; clouds, rain, snow, and storms build up heavier color.
• Spinning swirls are storms, marked H, L, or by tropical tier TD / TS / HU, with the pressure in hPa.
• The green YOU dot is you. Drag to pan, scroll to zoom.

The side panel shows your local conditions: weather type, pressure, temperature in Fahrenheit, wind in mph, and the current season.

Storms hurt fishing and boating. Rough seas and high wind make casting impossible, and a hurricane shuts fishing down until it passes. Calm overcast and light rain actually fish best. Check the map before you head out.

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