Operational Forecast System - NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services
Original (non-English) name
Acronym
OFS - NOAA-OC-OPS
Citation
Abstract
The primary objective of the National Operational Coastal Modeling Program (NOCMP) is to develop and operate a national network of Operational Nowcast and Forecast Hydrodynamic Model Systems (called OFS) to support NOAA's mission goals and priorities. An OFS consists of the automated integration of observing system data streams, hydrodynamic model predictions, product dissemination and continuous quality-control monitoring. State-of-the-art numerical hydrodynamic models driven by real-time data and meteorological, oceanographic, and/or river flow rate forecasts will form the core of these end-to-end systems. The OFS will perform nowcast and short-term (0 hr. - 48 hr.) forecast predictions of pertinent parameters (e.g., water levels, currents, salinity, temperature, waves) and disseminate them to users.
Nowcasts and forecasts are scientific predictions about the present and future states of water levels (and possibly currents and other relevant oceanographic variables, such as salinity and temperature) in a coastal area. These predictions rely on either observed data or forecasts from a numerical model. A nowcast incorporates recent (and often near real-time) observed meteorological, oceanographic, and/or river flow rate data. A nowcast covers the period of time from the recent past (e.g., the past few days) to the present, and it can make predictions for locations where observational data are not available. A forecast incorporates meteorological, oceanographic, and/or river flow rate forecasts and makes predictions for times where observational data will not be available. A forecast is usually initiated by the results of a nowcast.
OFS are being implemented in critical ports, harbors, estuaries, Great Lakes and coastal waters of the United States, and will join the National Ocean Service's operational oceanographic capabilities to form a national backbone of real-time data, tidal predictions, data management and operational modeling.
The National Ocean Service's Operational Data Acquisition and Archiving System (ODAAS) acquires, subsets and archives real-time observations and the National Weather Service's (NWS) forecast model guidance in support the suite of real-time nowcast/forecast systems listed below. Below, click on each OFS region to display or close a list of OFS.