Achieving a Maritime Weather-Ready Nation

Nearly $2 trillion worth of imports and exports are transported aboard 60,000 ocean-faring vessels through the nation’s seaports each year, while over 11 million Americans board cruise ships from these same ports annually. Much of this shipping is along routes that are impacted by severe storms at sea, extratropical as well as tropical. Despite investments made in weather forecasting that have substantially improved predictability, ships still transit into hazardous conditions. Incidents of ships encountering extreme weather at sea highlight challenges in exchanging information among ships, national marine forecasting centers, and commercial weather providers; these challenges adversely impact decision-making by mariners.

Our U.S. Weather Enterprise collaborates to observe, forecast, and warn the nation of hazardous weather events, helping users make decisions crucial to protecting life and property. This presentation will investigate how we might define a “maritime” weather ready nation, and using recent case studies, illustrate the present state of our maritime weather readiness.