Modernized Forecasts and Warnings for the High Seas

Since 1914, the National Weather Service has been charged with the obligation to issue forecasts and warnings for portions of the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and South Pacific oceans. The High Seas Forecast and Warning suite, which has not seen large-scale improvements since the mid-1980s, is currently undergoing a robust modernization through the use of Hazard Services, an AWIPS software application. The High Seas working group recently finalized the requirements for this modernization and presented them to the Hazard Services team at NOAA’s Global Systems Laboratory. Hazard Services for the High Seas will provide curated, actionable information in an automated and timely manner through the use of Hazard polygons, graphics, XML, GML, and JSON outputs. This presentation will focus on the progress toward meeting these requirements. This includes highlighting automated creation of High Seas warning polygons, an expansion of warning and forecast hazard subtypes, a KML parser to generate synoptic features as hazards, and a parent/child mechanism to group hazards together. A look at upcoming work is also included.