Safe to Row helps coaches, rowing-program leaders, and rowers make a faster first-pass decision about whether conditions look appropriate for launching from the Anacostia Community Boathouse in Washington, DC.
The dashboard turns weather, heat stress, air quality, river, and source-health signals into a conservative ROW, CAUTION, or NO ROW outlook. It is designed to be glanceable before practice while still making the main reason for each advisory visible.
Who it is for
Safe to Row is for coaches deciding whether to hold practice, rowing-program leaders communicating with athletes, safety launches checking conditions before heading out, and rowers who want context before traveling to the boathouse.
The public dashboard is available at https://safetorow.com/.
What the dashboard shows
- A current launch advisory for the boathouse.
- Half-hour launch starts from 4:00 AM through 10:00 PM Eastern Time.
- The primary reason behind each row, caution, or no-row call.
- Measured and forecast values including wind, AQI, air temperature, heat stress, water temperature, and other safety checks.
- Source status and links that help people verify the underlying public information.
Heat-stress checks
Safe to Row uses wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) from NWS grid forecast data when available. WBGT combines heat, humidity, sun, wind, and cloud effects, so it is a better outdoor-sport heat signal than air temperature alone.
The dashboard applies USRowing Category 3 heat-safety thresholds for this location: caution at or above 87.1 F WBGT, high heat risk at or above 90.1 F WBGT, and no row at or above 92.1 F WBGT.
Public API
The public API exposes the same static snapshot used by the dashboard. It is intended for lightweight integrations, coaching tools, personal scripts, or program websites that want to reuse the current outlook without scraping the page.
- /api/v1/outlook.json provides the latest outlook snapshot, including location, source health, launch blocks, reasons, cautions, observations, and thresholds.
- /api/v1/openapi.json describes the public API shape for tools that read OpenAPI documents.
Attribution and support
Safe to Row uses public forecast, heat-stress, air-quality, water-level, and water-temperature information where available. Source links on the dashboard point to the most useful public pages for checking the Anacostia Community Boathouse location.
Built by Pedro Alcocer. For support, email pealco@gmail.com.
Advisory Only: Final launch decisions are made by coaches, safety launches, club leaders, and local authorities. Always check actual river and dock conditions before launching.