Development of a real-time operational forecasting system off the central California coast will be described. The ocean model is based on the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) with a spatial resolution of 15-km, 5-km, and 1.5-km covering the U.S. West coast, central California coast, and Monterey Bay, respectively. A 50-km Pacific basin-wide ROMS will also be used to provide the boundary condition for the 15-km ROMS off the U.S. West coast. The proposed ocean forecasting system is forced with the near real-time blended wind product from satellite scatterometer measurements (QuikSCAT) and mesoscale atmospheric model simulations (COAMPS). Both the historical MB data and the real-time data (in situ and remotely sensed) will be assimilated into the forecasting system through a 3-dimensional variational (3DVar) method. The results from a recent field experiment during August 2003 will be described.