Navy weather and ocean charts available to the Broadcast Meteorologist via the open Internet

The Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography (METOC) Center in Monterey, CA, is the Defense Department's primary central production site for operational numerical METOC analyses and forecasts worldwide. Each day, Fleet Numerical provides over 450,000 computer-generated products to users around the world through a variety of communication links, including dial-up networks and the Internet. In recent years, the Internet has increasingly become the distribution channel of choice. A by-product of this has been the ability to make many unique Navy METOC products available to the general public via Fleet Numerical’s Web site at www.fnmoc.navy.mil. Available products include output from several Navy METOC models, including weather prediction guidance from the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS), predicted ocean wave heights and directions from the Third-Generation Wave Model (WAM), and sea surface temperatures and temperature anomalies from the Optimum Thermal Interpolation System (OTIS). General information about Fleet Numerical and links to other military METOC sites are also available at www.fnmoc.navy.mil. This paper will discuss the specific Fleet Numerical products that are available on the World Wide Web, many of which have already proven useful to Broadcast Meteorologists.

(If presentation equipment and Internet access is available, the paper will be presented on-line displaying real-time data from the Fleet Numerical site.)