NOUS41 KWBC 152100
PNSWSH
Technical Implementation Notice 12-02
NOAA’s National Ocean Service Headquarters
Washington DC
Relayed by National Weather Service Washington DC
400 PM EST Thu Jan 5 2011
To: Subscribers:
-Family
of Services
-NOAA
Weather Wire Service
-Emergency
Managers Weather Information Network
-NOAAPORT
Other
NWS and NOS partners and employees
From: Peter
Stone
Chief,
Oceanographic Division
NOS
Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and
Services (CO-OPS)
Subject: Implementation
of National Ocean Service’s new
Oceanographic
Forecast Modeling System for Northern
Gulf of
Mexico, Effective March 29, 2012
Effective March 29, 2012 beginning at 1500
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), 10:00 AM EST, the National Ocean Service Northern
Gulf of Mexico Operational Forecast System (NGOFS) will be implemented on
NOAA’s Central Computer System (CCS) operated by NCEP Central Operations (NCO).
NGOFS will now provide users with nowcasts (analyses of near present) and
forecast guidance of the three-dimensional physical conditions of the northern
Gulf of Mexico. The nowcasts will include surface
water levels and 3-D water currents, water temperature, and salinity out to 48
hours.
As its core ocean prediction model, NGOFS uses the Finite
Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM) developed jointly by the University of
Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. FVCOM is a prognostic, unstructured-grid, finite-volume, free-surface, 3-D
primitive equation, coastal ocean model with a horizontal grid comprised of
unstructured triangular cells in which the irregular bottom is presented using
generalized terrain-following coordinates.
The NGOFS grid consists of 91652 nodes and 176545
elements. The grid includes northern Gulf of Mexico shelf waters and bays. Grid
resolution ranges from 10 km on the open ocean boundary to approximately 600 m near
the coast, indicating the flexibility of the grid size based on bathymetry from
the deep ocean to the coast. Additionally, the higher resolution along the navigational
channels within bays, from approximately 200 m to 300 m, provides detailed
current features.
NGOFS operates within the NOS Coastal Ocean
Modeling Framework (COMF) and has four daily nowcast and forecast cycles at 0,
6, 12, and 18 UTC.
For the NGOFS nowcast cycle, the meteorological forcing is provided by the nested, high resolution (4
km) NCEP North American Mesoscale (NAM) weather prediction model.
River discharge is estimated using near-real-time
observations from U.S. Geological Survey river gauges.
Oceanographic conditions of subtidal water levels, currents, water temperature and salinity on the NGOFS lateral open
boundary on the shelf are estimated based on forecast guidance from the Navy
Coast Ocean Model (NCOM) and adjusted by real-time observations at NOS water
level gauges.
Tides are derived from the Advanced CIRCulation
Model (ADCIRC) ec2001 tide database. Subtidal water level forecasts from NWS
Extra-Tropical Storm Surge (ETSS) Model are used as a backup if NCOM is not
available.
For the NGOFS forecast cycle, the meteorological
forcing is provided by the nested, high resolution (4 km) NCEP North American
Mesoscale (NAM) weather prediction model.
River discharge is estimated by persistence of the
most recent near-real-time observations from U.S. Geological Survey river
gauges.
Oceanographic conditions of subtidal water levels,
currents, water temperature and salinity on NGOFS’ lateral open boundary on the
shelf are estimated based on forecast guidance from NCOM.
Tides are derived from the Advanced CIRCulation
Model (ADCIRC) ec2001 tide database. Subtidal water level forecasts from NWS
Extra-Tropical Storm Surge (ETSS) Model are used as a backup if NCOM is not
available.
Gridded and point forecast guidance from NGOFS will
be available in netCDF files on the NCEP server at NOAA’s Web Operations
Centers (WOC) (ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov) in the directory
/pub/data/nccfs/com/nos/prod/ngofs.yyyymmdd
at NOS/CO-OPS OPeNDAP server
http://opendap.co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/netcdf/
and at CO-OPS THREDDS server
http://opendap.co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/thredds/catalog.html
NGOFS output is displayed on the CO-OPS web page at
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov
Additional information about NGOFS can be found at
http://www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/models.html
NGOFS predictions are used by commercial and
recreational mariners and fishermen, emergency managers, search and rescue
operations, and NWS marine weather forecasters. The development and
implementation of NGOFS was a joint project of the NOS/Office of Coast Survey
(OCS), the NOS/Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services
(CO-OPS), NWS/NCEP/NCO and the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. NGOFS is
monitored 24 x 7 by both NCO and CO-OPS Continuous Real-Time Monitoring System
(CORMS) personnel.
If you have any questions concerning these changes,
please contact:
Dr. Aijun Zhang
NOS/CO-OPS
Silver Spring, MD
or
Dr. Frank Aikman
Marine Modeling and Analysis Branch
Coast Survey Development Laboratory
NOAA/NOS/Office of Coast Survey
Silver Spring, MD
For questions regarding the dataflow aspects with
respect to the NCEP server at the WOC, please contact:
Rebecca Cosgrove
NCEP/NCO Dataflow Team
Camp Springs, MD
ncep.list.pmb-dataflow@noaa.gov
For questions on how to access NGOFS digital
products from CO-OPS servers please contact:
Rich Bourgerie
NOS/CO-OPS/Data Monitoring and Assessment Team
Silver Spring, MD
National
Technical Implementation Notices are online at:
http://www.weather.gov/om/notif.htm
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