How Marla predicts underwater visibility
For divers in the UK and Ireland, predicting underwater visibility is one of the biggest challenges
While sometimes undersea visibility can be less than a metre, on other days it can be a crystal clear 20+metres. Putting your head underwater reveals a diverse and captivating world. Dense forests of kelp sway like an enchanted woodland, sheltering schools of shimmering fish and crabs scuttling below.
It’s not just the weather that plays a role—there are countless factors at work. Some, like tides and currents, are predictable, but others, like algae blooms, can appear overnight and completely change the visibility.
Even divers with years of experience are often caught out. As one seasoned diver put it:
“I’m experienced at predicting visibility, but that doesn't mean I’m good at it."
Good visibility doesn’t just make diving more enjoyable; it’s also essential for safety. It’s no fun—and potentially dangerous—diving when you can’t see what’s in front of you.
That’s where Marla comes in—it helps you find the best undersea visibility, so you can experience the beauty the UK and Irish seas have to offer.
Underwater visibility is especially variable close to shore (shown in yellow), where most diving happens.
We built a bespoke AI model to forecast underwater visibility
Our AI model collects weather, coastal conditions, diver reports, and—most importantly—satellite data that tracks algae levels. All these key factors are analysed to create an underwater visibility forecast for anywhere around the UK and Irish coast.
This approach means we can provide accurate, daily, visibility forecasts for anywhere in the Ocean, without the need for expensive, hard-to-install sensors, or waiting for somebody to put their head underwater first.
Our model is trained on 10 years' worth of historical earth observation data. That’s a massive amount of information—more than that which models like ChatGPT were trained on!
Technical details about Marla’s visibility forecast
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Our visbility forecast is
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for the vertical visibility in the water as seen from the sea surface. In future, we aim to use diver reports to also forecast horizontal visibility.
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provided with a resolution down to 300m.
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given in 4 ranges. These take into account potential errors in satellite and weather measurements. It's an overall estimation rather than specific values for different areas.
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Doesn't take into account safe diving conditions, please check the conditions before you go.
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Tides are not yet taken into account.
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Each forecast comes with a confidence score. It’s based on quality of data resolution, satellite cloud cover and more.
