Elevated to critical fire weather conditions remain for portions of the Southern Plains and Central/Southern Rockies. Pacific energy continues to bring mountain snow and rain to the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies.
A skipper is a person who has command of a boat or sea craft or tug, more or less equivalent to captain in charge aboard ship. At sea, or upon lakes and rivers, the skipper as shipmaster or captain has command over the whole crew.
Ship captains are usually knowledgeable about their ship and ocean navigation, but they do not have the local knowledge, and the ship-handling training and experience for restricted waters, narrow channels, shallow waters, and in most cases, docking and undocking maneuvers, that pilots possess. Even ship captains who call regularly at the same port, never come close to matching the level of experience and local knowledge of the local pilots serving the port. Harobor Pilots protect, to the fullest extent possible, the waters, harbors, and ports of the State, the environment, life, and property, with safety as the primary objective.