Achieving a Maritime Weather Ready Nation: Challenges and Opportunities

Nearly $2 trillion worth of imports and exports are transported aboard 60,000 ocean-faring vessels through the nation’s seaports each year, while over 11 million Americans board cruise ships from these same ports annually. Much of this shipping is along routes that are impacted by severe storms at sea, extratropical as well as tropical. Despite investments made in weather forecasting that have substantially improved predictability, ships still transit into hazardous conditions. Incidents of ships encountering extreme weather at sea in recent years highlight challenges in exchanging information among ships, national marine forecasting centers, and commercial weather providers; these challenges adversely impact decision-making by mariners. This situation is further exacerbated by a maritime weather infrastructure that remains heavily reliant on decades old technology for dissemination, such as radiofax and text broadcasts. A vibrant dialogue between the maritime industry and the weather enterprise will foster a better understanding of the weather constraints and decision support required by the maritime industry, as well as the capabilities the 21st century weather enterprise can bring to bear on them. Rapid cyclogenesis at sea presents a forecast problem which requires a greater understanding of air-sea interaction, particularly given the intersection of major coastal storm tracks and ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream. The maritime industry would benefit from products and services that, among other things, extend the forecast lead time and provide probabilities of encountering weather hazards. Both the maritime community and the weather enterprise would significantly benefit from a more robust exchange of weather observations and a modernized approach to disseminating products to vessels at sea.