Extratropical Surge & Tide Operational Forecast System (ESTOFS): Global Upgrade, Future Development, Pacific Enhancement

Abstract:

The Extratropical Surge & Tide Operational Forecast System (ESTOFS) is one of the oldest-running coastal surge operational forecast systems developed by NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey in collaboration with other National Ocean Service (NOS), National Weather Service (NWS), and academic partners. Since 2012, the ADvanced ocean CIRCulation model (ADCIRC)-based ESTOFS has been deployed for the US East and Gulf Coasts and the Caribbean (ESTOFS-Atlantic), US West Coast and Hawaii (ESTOFS-Pacific), and for the US Territories in Micronesia from Palau to Marshall Islands (ESTOFS-Micronesia). In late 2020, Global ESTOFS (ESTOFS-Global) is going into operations, superseding all three existing operational domains with better spatial resolution and superior physics. State-of-the-art ESTOFS-Global will become a backbone for future development following the Unified Forecast System (UFS) approach, in order to improve NOAA capabilities in coastal inundation prediction and open the doors for new applications such as precision navigation, climate studies, risk assessment analysis, on-demand probabilistic forecasting and more. The ESTOFS framework is set up for seamless real-time skill assessment and data assimilation, and the underlying numerical modeling core is being coupled with other applications, e.g. WAVEWATCH III, the National Water Model, and the Global Real-Time Ocean Forecast System (Global RTOFS). We will discuss the operational implementation details of ESTOFS-Global and its future, including a new project to enhance the coastal water level guidance supporting disaster mitigation and safe navigation in the high-priority Pacific region. These enhancements will include refined bathymetry representation, an upgraded higher resolution mesh in key areas, and skill assessment for evaluating the resulting improvements in water level guidance products.