National Hurricane Center Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch Adds New Marine Forecast Zones to Eastern Pacific Ocean

National Hurricane Center Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch adds new Marine Forecast zones to Eastern Pacific Ocean

Evelyn A. Rivera-Acevedo, National Hurricane Center - Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch, Miami FL

Providing weather support for mariners traversing the eastern North Pacific Ocean is one of the NHC’s Tropical Analysis Forecast Branch (TAFB) areas of responsibility. The offshore waters are usually one of the most vulnerable areas during high-impact weather events like tropical storms, hurricanes and dangerous marine storms. In the Eastern Pacific, there is a diverse group of marine users, including pleasure crafts, commercial vessels, and cargo ships, which travel through the waters from the Gulf of Baja California south along the Mexican coast, Central America, and to and from the Panama Canal. In these areas, mariners need wind and wave information, as precise as possible, in order to provide safe transportation services to their passengers and cargo. Early in 2019, NHC’s TAFB began issuing detailed 5-day marine weather forecast products for the offshore waters of Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador. This is an improvement from the previous 2-day text forecast products that were available for the Pacific Ocean. Such improvements will promote better decision support for ship captains and their crews in hurricane-prone waters in order to avoid potential marine disasters.

The project consists of the addition of ten eastern Pacific coastal marine zones that will cover the area within 250 nautical miles (nm) of Mexico, seven marine zones covering the area within 250 nm of Central America and Colombia, and within 750 nm of Ecuador to include the offshore Galapagos Islands. TAFB meteorologists will provide a 5-day marine weather forecast, including the 10 meter winds, significant wave heights, swell direction, dominant wave period and significant weather. Many of the marine users and core partners are from the Caribbean and Central America, where Spanish is the main language of communication. Adding the Spanish translation of the forecast was also an important goal of this project. Starting in late 2020, the marine forecast for all the Eastern Pacific will be available in Spanish, which will greatly help in advancing the overarching NWS goals of providing the best decision support services possible in order to maximize the protection of life and property.