Special Marine Warning Issued for Florida Bay and Hawk Channel
This alert is no longer in effect.
NOAA issued it on August 6, 2026, 2 weeks ago. Warnings of this kind stay in effect for hours to a few days, so this page is a historical record of what was issued, not a current warning. For conditions where you are right now, check weather.gov (US), weather.gc.ca (Canada), the Met Office (UK), or the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia).
Areazine synthesizes this NWS weather alert directly from NOAA's official public data feed. See our methodology for full source attribution and refresh cadence.
NWS Key West has issued a Special Marine Warning for Florida Bay and Hawk Channel waters until 6:00 AM EDT due to a strong thunderstorm producing wind gusts of 34 knots or greater.
Read this weather record in 30 seconds
- Record type
- Special Marine Warning
- Affected area
- Florida Keys
- Issued
- August 6, 2026
- Issuing authority
- NWS Key West FL
Marine notices apply to named waters or shoreline zones. They may not describe conditions on land, even when the nearest place name is the same.
Record status: historical. It was issued 2 weeks ago; use the issuing agency's live warning service for current conditions in Florida Keys.
Alert Details
Special Marine Warning issued by NWS Key West FL. Effective from August 6 at 5:06 AM EDT until August 6 at 6:00 AM EDT. Severity: Severe. Urgency: Immediate. Certainty: Likely.
Affected Areas
Florida Bay including Barnes Sound, Blackwater Sound, and Buttonwood Sound; Bayside and Gulfside from Craig Key to West End of Seven Mile Bridge; Hawk Channel from Ocean Reef to Craig Key out to the reef; Hawk Channel from Craig Key to west end of Seven Mile Bridge out to the reef. Specific locations include Oxfoot Bank Light, Sprigger Bank Light, Channel Key Pass Light, Toms Harbor, Long Key Viaduct, Lignumvitae Key, and Peterson Keys.
What You Should Do
Boaters should seek safe harbor as quickly and as safely as possible. When downpours reduce visibility, slow down.
Expected Conditions
At 5:06 AM EDT, a strong thunderstorm was located over Boy Scouts Florida Sea Base, moving west at 20 knots. Hazard includes wind gusts 34 knots or greater, suddenly higher waves, frequent lightning, and heavy downpours.
Timeline
The warning is in effect from August 6 at 5:06 AM EDT until August 6 at 6:00 AM EDT.
Original source: NOAA Official Notice ↗
Related Weather Alerts
All Weather Alerts →Nationwide notices with similar length or severity timing 8
Two Areazine-derived peer sets for this NWS weather alert: nearest notices by body length and by same severity near the same agency date. Peers come from other categories so they are not the same-feed Related list above.
Similar body length
Nearest notices by article body length (1,134 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to August 6, 2026.
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Common questions about this NWS weather alert.