NOAA's NowCOAST: A GIS-Web Mapping Portal to Discover and Display Real-Time Coastal Observations, Satellite Imagery and NOAA Forecasts

Geographic Information System (GIS) technology is being applied to various fields in the world today, including classroom instruction. The National Ocean Service has ¬developed and implemented a GIS-based Web portal called nowCOAST (http://nowcoast.noaa.gov) to allow the general public and nation's coastal community to easily identify and access online, real-time coastal information for any region in the coastal United States. The portal serves as a one-stop shopping solution for users to view real-time meteorological, oceanographic, hydrologic, and water quality information from numerous federal-operated networks as well from mesonets and regional ocean observing systems. NowCOAST also provides access to NOAA forecast products including forecast guidance from NOAA's operational numerical ocean, lake, river, and weather prediction models, National Weather Service (NWS) forecast discussions, NWS' general weather and marine weather forecasts, and NOS Harmful Algae Bloom forecasts. In addition, the portal provides on-map, near-real-time satellite cloud imagery from NOAA weather satellites and weather radar data. The portal can be helpful to teachers by providing a single web location for them and their students to quickly locate and display environmental data in a particular watershed, estuary, Great Lake, or coastal ocean area to support class lessons about weather, oceanography, hydrology, or water quality.