Guide
Small craft advisories and the marine zones
Checked September 12, 2026 against the National Weather Service offices in Portland and Medford, National Weather Service marine definitions and federal rules.
The Marine tile repeats the National Weather Service forecast and any advisory for the stretches of nearshore water off your board. Here is which water each zone covers, which office writes it, and what the words mean.
An advisory is a forecast for open water. It is not a bar report. Whether you may cross a bar is the Coast Guard’s call, and a bar can be restricted on a day with no advisory. Check the bar report, the forecast and the water itself before you go.
The five zones
| Zone | Water | Towns on the board |
|---|---|---|
| PZZ251 Portland | Coastal waters from Cape Shoalwater, Washington, to Cape Falcon, out 10 nautical miles | Astoria, Warrenton, Gearhart, Seaside, Cannon Beach |
| PZZ252 Portland | Coastal waters from Cape Falcon to Cape Foulweather, out 10 nautical miles | Manzanita, Nehalem, Rockaway Beach, Garibaldi, Tillamook, Pacific City, Neskowin, Lincoln City, Depoe Bay |
| PZZ253 Portland | Coastal waters from Cape Foulweather to Florence, out 10 nautical miles | Newport, South Beach, Toledo, Waldport, Yachats |
| PZZ350 Medford | Coastal waters from Florence to Cape Blanco, out 10 nautical miles | Florence, Reedsport, Winchester Bay, North Bend, Coos Bay, Charleston, Coquille, Bandon |
| PZZ356 Medford | Coastal waters from Cape Blanco to Point St. George, California, out 10 nautical miles | Port Orford, Gold Beach, Brookings |
Three capes split the coast. Cape Falcon, between Cannon Beach and Manzanita, and Cape Foulweather, between Depoe Bay and Newport, are the lines between Portland’s zones; Cape Blanco, just north of Port Orford, is the line between Medford’s. Each board puts your side of its cape first and the other side second. Two zones run across a board line: PZZ252 is the water off Tillamook County and off Lincoln City and Depoe Bay both, and Florence sits on the seam between the two offices: its bar water, PZZ350, is Medford’s, while its land forecast comes from Portland, so the tile names the office on each block. Beyond 10 miles out are five more zones (PZZ271, PZZ272, PZZ273, PZZ370 and PZZ376) running from 10 to 60 nautical miles offshore, and Portland writes a separate block, PZZ210, for the Columbia River Bar itself. The board carries none of those: for the Columbia, the bar tile prints the Coast Guard’s own report, which is what a crossing turns on.
Marine zones cover the ocean, not rivers or bays. Astoria, Tillamook, Toledo, Coquille and Reedsport are shown the zone for the water you reach by running downriver and over the bar.
What the words mean
These are the National Weather Service’s definitions. Winds are sustained winds, or frequent gusts, which the weather service defines as gusts for two hours or more in a 12-hour forecast period.
| Product | What it means |
|---|---|
| Small Craft Advisory | On the West Coast: winds of 21 to 33 knots, and/or waves over 10 feet, or seas steeper than the local limit. |
| Gale Warning | Winds of 34 to 47 knots (39 to 54 mph). |
| Storm Warning | Winds of 48 to 63 knots (55 to 73 mph). |
| Hurricane Force Wind Warning | Winds of 64 knots (74 mph) or more. |
| Hazardous Seas Warning | Wave height and/or steepness at or above the local warning limit. It is about the water, not the wind. |
| Watch (Gale Watch, Hazardous Seas Watch) | The risk is up, but whether it happens, and where and when, is still uncertain. |
The weather service says there is no precise definition of a small craft: any vessel that may be adversely affected by small craft advisory conditions counts as one.
Steep seas, not just big ones
In this region, small craft advisories and hazardous seas warnings are based partly on wave steepness, which combines wave height with wave period, and each forecast office sets its own limits. So an advisory can be in force over a forecast with light winds: the seas alone are enough.
The seas figure is the average height of the highest third of the waves, not the biggest wave. The weather service’s own example: with 10-foot seas, 1 wave in 10 will be larger than 11 feet, and 1 in 1,000 larger than 19 feet.
Why the bar and the forecast can disagree
They come from different agencies about different water. The advisory is the weather service’s forecast for up to 10 miles of open ocean. A bar restriction is the Coast Guard’s decision about the entrance itself, based on the wave height on the bar measured against a boat’s length and freeboard, and on the officer’s own knowledge of local conditions. A bar can be restricted with no advisory in force, and an advisory can be up while the bar has no restrictions.
Where the forecast comes from
The wind and seas on the tile are from each office’s Coastal Waters Forecast, a text product written for each zone, shown period by period in the office’s own words: Portland’s for PZZ251, PZZ252 and PZZ253, Medford’s for PZZ350 and PZZ356. Advisories come from the weather service’s alerts for those zones. If the board could not reach the alerts, the tile says “Advisories not checked”, which is not the same as no advisory. The Medford office’s recorded marine forecast is 541-776-4305; the Portland office’s public line is 503-261-9246.
Sources
- National Weather Service Portland, marine and National Weather Service Medford, marine
- The Coastal Waters Forecasts the board reads: Portland (Cape Shoalwater, Washington, to Florence) and Medford (Florence to Point St. George), and the zone forecasts for PZZ251, PZZ252, PZZ253, PZZ350 and PZZ356
- National Weather Service, marine warning definitions
- National Weather Service, marine forecast FAQ (small craft, wave height)
- NWS Instruction 10-315, marine weather messages (frequent gusts) and Western Region Supplement 12-2003 (wave steepness)
- 33 CFR 165.1325, Regulated Navigation Areas: bars along the coasts of Oregon and Washington