surface currents Archives - Office of Coast Survey

September 23, 2021March 23, 2022

New NOAA website provides marine navigation resources in a central location

Commercial vessels navigating in the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach

A recently launched website from NOAA’s Precision Marine Navigation (PMN) program will improve the use and accessibility of NOAA’s marine navigation products and services. The website, Marine Navigation, includes links and short descriptions to NOAA’s various navigation resources, providing a one-stop shop that mariners can visit to get the data they need. Designed for shipping professionals and recreational boaters alike, the PMN program hopes the website will become a valuable tool to support all mariners in their navigation planning and decision making processes.

August 20, 2021March 23, 2022

Model Upgrade: Global Extratropical Surge and Tide Operational Forecast System Upgraded to Version Two

Screen captures of two new implementations of version two; federal levees along the Mississippi and flood plain inclusion for Puerto Rico.

In late July 2021, the Global Extratropical Surge and Tide Operational Forecast System (Global ESTOFS) upgrade to version two was implemented into operations on the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System (WCOSS). The modeling system provides forecast guidance for combined water levels caused by storm surge and tides globally, and is to our knowledge the highest resolution global operational storm surge modeling system available today. The forecast guidance from the model is used by forecasters at NWS Weather Forecast Offices (WFO) and the Ocean Prediction Center to generate their storm surge and flood forecasts during storms, including Nor’easters along the U.S. East Coast.

April 28, 2021March 23, 2022

NOAA’s Precision Marine Navigation data service receives first major update

The Precision Marine Navigation (PMN) program has completed the first update of its prototype navigation data service – the PMN data processing and dissemination system and PMN Data Gateway viewer. The data processing and dissemination system provides surface current forecast guidance from NOAA’s forecast systems, in a prototype marine navigation data format. The viewer allows users to visualize the predictions and discover where they are. Both the system and the viewer were updated to include data from the recently upgraded Northern Gulf of Mexico Operational Forecast System (NGOFS2).