Caribbean Watch: Sint Maarten

This page contains current ocean conditions in the Caribbean Sea, focusing on Sint Maarten, inferred from the Mercator Ocean reanalysis dataset.

Physical oceanographic conditions in the Caribbean Sea are considered. Here we use a combination of data from Mercator Ocean and a state-of-the-art, fine-scale hydrodynamic model of the full Caribbean Sea region using ADCIRC. The former is an operational 1/12º global ocean physics and analysis data set. This assimilates data using the NEMO ocean model (version 3.1, at a horizontal spatial resolution of 1/12º, 3-9 km) from various sources, including satellite and shipboard observations, to give the best, continuous approximation of ocean behaviour in space and time, over the period 2007-2017.

Current conditions

Up to date two-hourly mean surface currents of the Caribbean Sea in the regional waters of Sint Maarten, either side of today 31 Dec 2019: from a week ago on 24 Dec 2019 and forecast nine days ahead to 9 Jan 2020.

Two-hourly mean surface currents of the Caribbean Sea in the regional waters of Sint Maarten. Velocity data is from the Mercator operational 1/12º global ocean physics and analysis data set (Mercator Ocean, 2017). Bathymetry and coastlines determined from GEBCO (2014). To identify the location of shallower waters, a red line marks the 100m depth contour. Available to download here. A forecast of the daily mean surface velocity is also available here.