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 Hazard Services team at NOAA’s Global Systems Laboratory has made significant progress toward meeting requirements provided by the integrated High Seas working group. This progress includes 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. Initial testing of the basic workflow of Hazard Services for the High Seas was conducted during a forecaster workshop in June 2024 at the Hurricane and Ocean Testbed at the National Hurricane Center. Feedback was gathered and used to make further improvements. This presentation will focus on highlighting the various hazards which can now be automatically generated, the benefits to the High Seas forecasters, and the future improvements still under development. It will be shown that the end result will provide curated, actionable information in an automated and timely manner through the use of Hazard polygons, graphics, XML, GML, and JSON outputs.