National Weather Service launches "recreational forecasts" in West

[elagache]

Dear WeatherCat citizens of the USofA,

This morning the National Weather Service in Monterey, CA announced a new service: Recreational Forecasts.  For example, here is the forecast for the extended San Francisco and Monterey Bay areas:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/wrh/rec/?wfo=mtr

Anyone with recreational inclinations might be a bit offended by the paltry list of potential activities.  Two of my former hobbies were definitely excluded: astronomy and scuba diving.  Another former pursuit didn't seem to get proper coverage: sailing.  This omission seems particularly odd, since the National Weather Service has a marine forecast - what was so hard about using that?

However, it is a new service so perhaps we need to cut them a little slack.  I tried to find out how common it was and it appears to be launched only in a few locations (perhaps 1!)

I used the URL to construct "equivalent" searches for a new other locations in the western half of the United States, but ended up getting only generic pages.  Here is the constructed page for San Diego:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/wrh/rec/?wfo=sgx

Here is construction for Seattle: (which looks identical)

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/wrh/rec/?wfo=sew

Here is the constructed URL for Albuquerque - same image yet again.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/wrh/rec/?wfo=abq

I couldn't make any version work for other regions of the country.  However, there is a recreational forecast to be found in Georgia:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ffc/?n=recfcst

I didn't have a chance to compare this to the offerings on the corporate websites, but last time I looked they were "underwhelming." 

So we'll just have to keep an eye on this as work in progress.  I suspect that folks on this board can figure out what the weather will be like for whatever recreation they want to indulge in anyway! 

Cheers, Edouard