A few new datasets have been added this summer. First, in following along with the updated deferred areas for the next lease sale, wind energy areas and proposed leases for the separate wind energy sale are included. Additionally, the known habitat and investigation areas for the distribution of Rice's whales are also available. Both are easily loaded in the Global Loader by simply searching for keywords such as 'wind' or 'whale'.
As a quick reminder, Storm Forecasts are available in GOMsmart. As of the writing of this newsletter, three storms are active in the Atlantic with two other disturbances having a 70% chance of forming a storm in the next seven days. As shown in the image below, forecast tracks are created for disturbances long before a storm forms. More details are available in GOMsmart's help page on the subject and information about wind speed predictions at each platform is here in a previous newsletter.
Storms and disturbances at 7PM Central time, August 20, 2023.