Reading Buoy Data

Each buoy marker is tinted by its own water temperature, using the same color ramp as the SST legend, so a marker that clashes with the satellite color around it is your cue that the pass is stale or cloud-contaminated there.

What does the marker color mean?

On the SST layer, each buoy is tinted by its own reported water temperature run through the exact same color scale the SST legend uses at that moment, so a buoy's color should match the satellite color underneath it. When it doesn't, that's real signal: the satellite reading nearby is likely stale or cloud-affected, not the buoy. On the chlorophyll layer, buoys carry no temperature-based tint at all and render as plain neutral dots, since chlorophyll isn't what a buoy measures.

How do I see more detail on a buoy?

Zoom in past level 10 and each buoy gets a temperature label next to it. Tap or click a buoy to open a card with current temperature, wind, and wave conditions. From there you can expand to a sparkline trend chart (12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, 3 days, or 7 days, 24 hours by default) and a table of the last 48 hours of raw readings.

How do I know if a reading is fresh?

The card shows a freshness indicator: fresh under 2 hours old, stale between 2 and 6 hours, and flagged as very stale past 6 hours. A buoy that hasn't reported in over 12 hours is treated as offline: it renders hollow and faded on the map and drops out of the temperature-tint calculation entirely.

Do buoys require a subscription?

Yes, buoys require a Pro subscription covering the buoy's region. A handful of stations (mainly Great Lakes buoys) sit outside all 38 fishing regions; those are only available on the Worldwide plan. See pricing for tier coverage, or region coverage for how coverage is decided more generally.