A Web-Based Tsunami Forecasting Tool: Design Approach and Implementation

With the move from historically desktop-based technologies towards the cloud, it was inevitable that Tsunami Forecasting tools would follow this path. This talk describes Tweb, a web-based tsunami-forecasting tool that is under development at the NOAA Center for Tsunami Research for use by researchers as well as domestic and international partners. While the Tweb tool will centralize forecast technology at a single data center, it will also build on existing distributed tools that allow for localized tsunami inundation product generation. Tweb will be an aggregator for these distributed generated tsunami products and allow a central access point for tsunami event forecast tools and products. This talk will describe the tsunami forecasting methodology on which the Tweb tool's design is based, as well as the technologies, system architecture, challenges and implementation details of the application. We will also discuss the distributed forecast tools and their integration into Tweb.