In an effort to support transition of coastal inundation modeling research to operations, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Meteorological Development Laboratory (MDL) is participating in the IOOS/SURA Super-Regional Coastal Modeling Testbed for coupling tidal and storm surge models for operational modeling.

The Sea Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model, developed by NOAA/MDL, is used for climatological, deterministic and probabilistic prediction of storm surge induced by landfalling hurricanes. The SLOSH model uses a parametric wind model based on forecast track, radius of maximum winds, and differential pressure between ambient and center of storm. MDL's SLOSH model is currently the operational standard used by the National Hurricane Center for storm surge and coastal inundation forecasting. SLOSH sets the bar for operational criteria in terms of accuracy and computational effort. MDL is providing guidance to the testbed for meeting and exceeding these criteria and enhancing the prediction of coastal inundation.

To improve operational coastal inundation modeling, the NOAA storm surge roadmap identified adding tides to the SLOSH model as a critical short-term requirement. This will provide a more accurate total water level forecast and thereby better predict inundation. Advancements to inundation forecasts will improve our emergency response and support decision making. Providing the results of adding tides to SLOSH will benefit the research community as they will have a better estimate of the bar they need to meet.

This paper will explore validations of SLOSH + tides in a large domain SLOSH basin which is beneficial to both the IOOS/SURA testbed (not previously within the capabilities of the testbed) and inundation efforts which depend on SLOSH + tides. The basin selected for validation is a much larger domain than tropical basins used operationally and is anticipated to yield better results for large storms in the Gulf of Mexico, such as Hurricanes Ike and Rita. These efforts parallel research being conducted in the IOOS/SURA testbed and will allow for the possibility of model to model comparison within the testbed.