Ocean Currents Map

Read the map as a schematic atlas

The button opens a selected catalog of named warm and cold ocean currents. The lines are simplified reference paths, and the moving dashes are an illustration. Their spacing, motion and colour do not measure the water's speed, width, temperature or position today. This view has no observation date, depth or forecast interval because it is not a measured current field. Use it to locate a familiar current and understand its broad geographic context before choosing a source for a more specific question.

For North America, the catalog includes Gulf Stream, Labrador, California and North Pacific reference paths. These names help orient the map; they do not divide US and Canadian waters into complete coverage areas. A line drawn near a coast cannot establish a current at a harbour entrance. Nor does an absent line establish still water. The catalog contains selected examples, not an exhaustive map of every coastal, tidal or ocean-basin current.

US Atlantic questions: the Gulf Stream needs a dated product

To examine an actual published Gulf Stream depiction, follow the NOAA Ocean Prediction Center's Gulf Stream imagery and data. The page identifies the Naval Oceanographic Office as the provider of those products. Read the issue time of the individual image or file, rather than treating the time you opened a web page as the time of an observation. PocketWorld's reference curve is not a copy of that day's published boundary or a substitute for the source product.

NOAA also provides Global RTOFS ocean-current model guidance. A model and a schematic answer different questions. In model guidance, retain the selected geographic area, parameter, run or issue information and valid forecast time. Check whether you are viewing currents or sea surface temperature: a temperature image is not a direct display of water velocity. These external products remain on NOAA's site; opening this guide does not download their fields into the PocketWorld layer.

Coastal US currents: choose a station and a product

For a named coastal location, start with NOAA Current Predictions and identify the station by name or ID. A prediction is different from a measurement, and it applies to its stated location and settings. Do not transfer a basin-scale reference arrow to a local channel or use a nearby water-height graph as if it measured current speed. Our US tides and currents guide explains the separate products and the reference information to retain when comparing them.

Canada: current predictions and water levels have different units

The Canadian Hydrographic Service's Canadian Tide and Current Tables distinguish predicted water heights from predicted current events and velocities. Choose the appropriate publication volume and location, then check its year, time convention and units. A predicted slack-water event is not a statement that every nearby part of a strait has no flow. This page does not calculate those events or infer them from the Labrador or North Pacific reference lines.

The separate Canadian water-level guide helps interpret stations, height references and times. Keep those observations separate from a current product, just as you would keep a vessel's reported speed separate from the motion of the surrounding water. Neither a ship icon nor a coloured circulation line verifies a measurement at a Canadian station.

A comparison you can explain and repeat

1. Write down the question: broad circulation pattern, measured current, model field or tidal prediction.
2. Choose a source that supplies that quantity for the correct area and depth or station, where applicable.
3. Retain its issue time, valid time, units and product label before comparing two maps.
4. Record unavailable values as missing. Refreshing a page does not turn an old source product into a newer observation.

PocketWorld's schematic atlas provides educational geographic context. It does not determine a safe passage, current speed, navigation route or departure time. Return to the ship explorer and reading guides for available vessel reports, keeping those reports separate from oceanographic observations and forecasts.