National Plan to Expand NOS’ Operational Modeling Capabilities

Real-time marine forecast products based on numerical ocean models are a powerful tool serving a variety of uses, such as marine navigation planning for commercial port operations, harmful algal bloom formation and tracking, hazard response, and emergency search and rescue. Advances in data acquisition technology, ocean dynamics, numerical schemes and visualization tools have made marine forecasting products more accurate and reliable, and the dissemination of operational model products more timely and user friendly.

NOAA’s National Ocean Service (NOS) has been developing and maintaining a national network of hydrodynamic operational oceanographic nowcast and forecast modeling systems to support navigational and environmental applications in U.S. coastal and estuarine waters, and the Great Lakes. These operational forecast systems (OFS) provide the maritime community with nowcast and forecast guidance of water levels, currents, water temperature, and salinity for 48 to 120 hours.

NOS has collaborated with the National Weather Service (NWS) and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) and extramural partners from academia and the local maritime community to develop and implement the current suite of NOS OFS. NOS currently operates and maintains 15 OFS for the U.S. East and West coasts, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes, to cover approximately 35% of the CONUS coast. Over the next 8 to 10 years, NOS intends to provide complete coverage of the continental U.S and establish the necessary national infrastructure to enable other types of forecasts. This presentation will provide an overview of NOS’ new regional approach to expand its OFS capabilities and services nationally, a pathway to transition research models and applications to operations, and anticipated challenges to implement this plan.