Water Level Verification of Versions 1 and 2 of the Extratropical Surge and Tide Operational Forecast System for the Middle Texas Coast

Accurate water level guidance forecasts are important to decision makers who live or interact within the land-sea interface. When water levels are anomalously high along the Middle Texas Coast, significant impacts occur which affect thousands of people. Flooded properties, closed beaches, and closed coastal roads are just some of the impacts that can result . Given these impacts, National Weather Service Corpus Christi, Texas marine forecasters should understand verification of marine model water level guidance. Understanding how model guidance has performed during prior coastal flooding events will allow forecasters to increase their forecaster confidence with model output. This in turn will allow them to produce a more accurate message to core partners of the National Weather Service.

Version 1 of the Extratropical Surge and Tide Operational Forecast System (ESTOFS) was initially implemented on 18 September 2012 and on 25 April 2017 was upgraded to version 2. This upgrade increased its native grid resolution from 3 kilometers to 200 meters and also increased the resolution from 55 kilometers to 13 kilometers of the Global Forecast System (GFS) input used by the ESTOFS. These verification results have been used by National Weather Service Corpus Christi, Texas forecasters in the decision-making process on whether to issue a coastal flood advisory for portions of the Middle Texas Coast. A more accurate and consistent message to partners is the result of these verification efforts.