NOAA PORTS and Coastal Forecasting

NOAA PORTS and Coastal Forecasting abstract for 80th AMS Annual Mtg

Abstract: NOS is already working with the NWS to place into operation a NOAA Coastal Forecast System (CFS) to provide timely warnings and forecasts of fog, visibility, dangerous winds and waves, water levels, currents and thermal structure needed by the commercial shipping industry, general public and a host of other coastal users mentioned earlier. This effort is taking off from the Coastal Ocean Forecast (COFS) work on the West and East coast, the Coastal Marine Demonstration and Chesapeake Bay Operational Forecast System, CBOFS. The Coastal Marine Demonstration (CMD) project is demonstrating the capability of providing coastal marine environmental information to a select group of marine customers off the U.S. East Coast. The project is showcasing state-of-the-art experimental products that are important in coastal marine forecasting. It integrates new experimental nowcast and forecast oceanographic and atmospheric information and new methods to disseminate and display coastal environmental information. The integrated system that will be demonstrated also employs existingoperational and experimental ocean circulation models including NOAA's Coastal Ocean Forecast System (COFS). With the work of academia, other government agencies and industry, the NOAA National Weather Service and National Ocean Service combined these efforts and are planning to use the Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System, PORTS, to enable new information and products to be exchanged within NOAA Offices

This paper will provide the status and plans for current forecasting systems such as the Chesapeake Bay Operational Forecast System, CBOFS, CMD and COFS. These priorities will feed into the NWS and NOS to guide the planning and budgeting for an improved operational forecasting capability for the future. The NWS is planning an effort in FY2001 to develop and demonstrate a new capability on the Automated Weather Information Prediction System (AWIPS) for Forecasting and Evaluation of Seas and Lakes (SAFESEAS) that will integrate marine information on AWIPS and assist coastal weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) and the NWS Marine Prediction Center (MPC) in their decision making processes.====================================================