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January 2011 www.sname.org/sname/mt (relevant resources )The Alaska Sea Ice Program began in the 1980s as part of the National Weather Service (NWS) Marine Program in the Alaska Region. Early ice analysis and forecast charts were disseminated via radiofax by the U.S. Coast Guard. Radiofax is still in use today, and its limitations continue to constrict the current sea ice products. But additional means of dissemination have followed developments in commu- nications: e Internet now enables the NWS to provide an expanded suite of sea ice and marine weather prod- ucts to a much wider range of customers. The NWS Anchorage Forecast O ce main Web page can be found at: http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/ (see Figure 1). Colors appearing over a waters area indicate a marine hazard has been issued. Clicking one of these areas will take you to the marine text forecast for that area. e marine forecast texts can also be reached by clicking Marine? under the Forecasts/Products? head- ing in the dark blue area to the left of the image. Once you have clicked on Marine, you can then click on the forecast area numbers in the Alaska Region Marine Zones graphic that comes up, which will load the marine text forecast. Any of the forecast areas can be bookmarked or added to favorites, depending on your Web browser, for faster access. Gridded forecasts in graphical format are avail- able by clicking on Graphical? under Forecasts/ Products to the left of the image (see Figure 2). Graphic marine forecasts for winds, signi cant wave height, temperature, sky cover, probability of precipitation, and weather are available in 6-hour increments for 54 hours. Areas and forecast parameters are selected by pull-down menus. e forecast graphics can be ani- mated to display in a loop. There are plans to make point-and-click fore- casts available for all marine areas. e Alaska Sea Ice Program Web page address is http://pafc.arh.noaa. gov/ice.php or it can be accessed by clicking Ice Desk? under the Forecasts/Products section. e top section of the Sea Ice Program page contains information and announcements, while the lower sections are the text and graphic products. BY KATHLEEN COLE Wheres the Ice? The National Weather Services Alaska Sea Ice Program provides key forecasting and analysis tools FIGURE . Graphical forecast page. Forecast graphics can be animated to display in a loop. FIGURE . NWS Anchorage Forecast O ce main Web page.