Data disclaimer & attribution

Not for navigation or safety decisions

LakePulse Ireland aggregates public data to help you plan time on the water. It is not a safety system, an official forecast, or a substitute for judgment. Conditions on lakes change faster than any 15-minute gauge or hourly model — always verify against official sources (Met Office warnings for weather, the OPW (Office of Public Works) and navigation authorities for water conditions and access) and your own eyes before launching. The decision to go out, and its consequences, are yours.

Model forecasts are estimates

Wind numbers come from numerical weather models served via Open-Meteo. Models carry uncertainty, and channelled or relief-shadowed lakes (valley winds, sea breezes pushing up estuaries) can differ substantially from model output. The sailing score is an opinion encoded in math — a useful one, we think, but an opinion. Treat it as a planning aid, not ground truth.

Gauge-to-lake matching

Each lake page is matched to an OPW (Office of Public Works) gauge by station name, river name, and station catalogue. Where a gauge sits at the lake's outflow or shore, its stage tracks the lake surface; the EA station link on each page shows exactly which gauge is used. If data looks wrong for your lake, trust the source: every page links to the official OPW real-time report for its gauge.

Sources & licenses

• OPW (Office of Public Works) — real-time hydrometric network — water-level readings from stations across Ireland, via waterlevel.ie. Published under the Open Public Sector Information licence.
• Open-Meteo — weather forecasts (Met Éireann HARMONIE-AROME, NOAA GFS, ECMWF, DWD ICON and others), under their free API terms.
• RainViewer — radar tiles, free tier.
• OpenStreetMap & Overpass API — launch slips, marinas, clubs; base map tiles by CARTO. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence.
• Solunar times — computed by LakePulse Ireland from standard astronomical approximations; accuracy ±15 minutes.

Affiliation

LakePulse Ireland is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the OPW (Office of Public Works), the Met Office, Open-Meteo, CARTO, the OpenStreetMap Foundation, or any public body.