From Prototype to Operational Decision Support Services - Five Years of Coastal Total Water Level Forecasting in Eastern Region of the National Weather Service

From Prototype to Operational Decision Support Services - Five Years of Coastal Total Water Level Forecasting in Eastern Region of the National Weather Service

Following the National Weather Service (NWS) Service Assessments for Irene, Sandy, and Matthew, it was clear that there were service gaps and a lack of consistent and actionable information regarding forecasted water levels. Eastern Region (ER) management made it a top priority to close these gaps and provide more consistent and actionable water level forecasts. In 2017, after three successful Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) prototyping efforts, ER coastal WFOs implemented and operationalized daily water level forecast time series at approximately 70 coastal water level stations. The goal was to provide actionable, routine products to partners and the public. Today it is known as Total Water Level forecasting.

Central to this effort was the development and usage of an effective set of common forecaster tools to enable the review and analysis of coastal surge model information and model bias calculations. These tools include: 1) astronomical tide package, 2) tools to edit gridded surge information, 3) tools to edit point surge forecast information, 4) displays for pre-calculated model bias and forecast bias, and 5) tools to generate consistently formatted data and text watch/warning products. To achieve the operational status, a team needed to be assembled to continue development, maintenance, and to support users’ needs.

The development of the forecaster tools took hundreds of hours of coding and deliberations by the support team to complete an intuitive and efficient workflow. Some success in the forecasting process and service consistency were quickly realized. But more work was still needed to address the linger gaps in service delivery.

Specifically, the WFO’s coastal flood web pages were all different and generally directed users to the model guidance displays and not to the offices now authoritative water level forecasts.

A new Web Requirements team was developed. The web team created a comprehensive interface for web content to support IDSS needs and in true NWS fashion, quickly transitioned themselves into an implementation team. Version 1.0 of the regionally standard webpage, located at www.weather.gov/erh/coastalflood, debuted in April 2021.

Every step of the way, the regional program managers, support team, and web team continued the internal training and outreach via conference calls, webinars, trainings, and town halls covering various aspects of forecaster tools, scientific knowledge, and updates to web sites. Additionally, the ER approach to this service delivery was also socialized to other parts of the organization.

Another key aspect of ER’s success in Total Water Level IDSS services has been the time invested with the emergency management community. The local offices brought the new tools and information to this audience through Integrated Warning Teams as well as through seasonal stakeholder workshops.

As with any research-to-operations effort, the conversations with the modeling community was also key. What did this look like? ER program managers worked closely with the modelers on a routine basis. The modelers were invited to attend some of our team meetings and interact with ER field office staff through “Town Hall” formatted webinars. Program managers and modelers worked together to pursue the data access issues and internal dissemination challenges. This resulted in getting more eyes on both experimental and operational data, which resulted in a feedback loop with the developers and other NWS offices and has enabled the model developers to address specific ER needs and model deficiencies quickly.

Five years later, the Weather Forecast Offices of the Eastern Region of the National Weather Service provide vital information and forecasts on coastal water levels which helps emergency managers and other users prepare for impactful coastal flooding. The ER TWL effort would not have been successful without the application of solid leadership and program management principles.