429
NOUS41 KWBC 141700
PNSWSH

Public Information Statement 24-34
National Weather Service Headquarters Silver Spring MD
100 PM EDT Tue May 14 2024

To:   Subscribers:
   -NOAA Weather Wire Service
   -Emergency Managers Weather Information Network
   -NOAAPort
   Other NWS Partners, Users and Employees

From:   Patrick Burke
   Chief, Oceanographic Division
   NOS/Center for Operational Oceanographic Products
   and Services

Subject:   Soliciting Comments on Updates to the NOS Operational
Forecast
   System (OFS) Framework Version and the Implementation of
the
   Oceanographic Forecast Modeling Systems for the Salish Sea
and
   Columbia River through June 6, 2024

The NOS is proposing to update the version of the Coastal Ocean
Modeling
Framework (COMF) and with the NWS/NCEP Central Operations (NCO) will
implement the new Salish Sea and Columbia River Operational Forecast
System (SSCOFS) in late August 2024.  NOS is seeking comments on this
proposed upgrade through June 6, 2024.If approved, a Service Change
Notice (SCN) will be issued at least 30 days before implementation
with
more detailed information.

The following changes are proposed:

1. Changes to the existing OFS

With this COMF version update and in accordance with NCOs
implementation
standards, the proposed changes to all NOS OFS model output file
names
will comply with the following new file naming convention. The file
contents remain unchanged:

For nowcast and forecast station files
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.stations.nowcast.nc
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.stations.forecast.nc

For the 3D fields nowcast(n) and forecast(f) files
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.fields.n{HHH}.nc
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.fields.f{HHH}.nc

For the optional 2D nowcast(n) and forecast(f) files
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.2ds.n{HHH}.nc
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.2ds.f{HHH}.nc

Where OFS is OFS name acronym (e.g.,cbofs, dbofs, tbofs, gomofs,
ngofs2,
leofs, lmhofs, loofs, lsofs, sfbofs, wcofs, ciofs);
CC is run cycle (e.g., 03, 09, 15, 21, and 00,06, 12, 18;
YYYYMMDD is timestamp, YYYY(year), MM(month) and DD(day).
HHH is the HHH-th simulation hour (e.g., 001, 002)

2. Ice forecasting is reactivated for all Great Lakes OFS

The ice module was turned off in February 2023 because of unrealistic
ice
thickness forecasts in the Great Lakes OFS during the 2023 winter
season.
Corrections were added in the ice modules and tested using the 2023
hindcast simulations. These corrections are included in the proposed
update to the FVCOM package.

The following ice- related float variables will be added to the
field/gridded output files of the four Great Lakes Operational
Forecast
Systems of Lake Erie (LEOFS), Lake Michigan and Huron (LMHOFS), Lake
Ontario (LOOFS), and Lake Superior (LSOFS): aice, vice,
latent_heat_flux,
sensible_heat_flux, long_wave, tsfc, uuice, and vvice.

3. Proposed implementation of the Salish Sea and Columbia River
Operational Forecast System (SSCOFS)

SSCOFS will provide users with nowcasts (analyses of near present)
and
forecast guidance of the physical conditions of surface water levels,
3-
dimensional water currents, water temperature, and salinity out to 72
hours for the Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands, the Strait of
Georgia,
the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Northern Pacific Coast and the lower
Columbia River. This new FVCOM based model, with the Columbia River
to the
Bonneville Dam as part of its domain, will decommission the existing
Semi-
implicit Eulerian-Lagrangian Finite Element (SELFE) based Columbia
River
and Estuary Operational Forecast System (CREOFS).
The following files from CREOFS will no longer be available with the
proposed implementation of SSCOFS,
nos.creofs.stations.nowcast.{YYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
nos.creofs.stations.forecast.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
nos.creofs.fields.n{HHH}.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
nos.creofs.fields.f{HHH}.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
nos.creofs.obc.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.tar
nos.creofs.river.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.th.tar
nos.creofs.met.nowcast.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.tar
nos.creofs.met.forecast.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.tar
nos.creofs.init.nowcast.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.bin
nos.creofs.nowcast.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.in
nos.creofs.forecast.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.in

The SSCOFS unstructured triangular mesh will have 239,734 nodes and
433,410 elements. The vertical grid will follow the terrain and
consist of
10 spatially- varying sigma-layers. The resolution will vary from 100
m
inside the estuaries to 500 m in deeper parts of Puget Sound and the
Georgia Basin, and increases to 10 km over the continental shelf.
Resolution inside the Columbia River varies between 100 m and 200 m.

The proposed SSCOFS will operate within the NOS Coastal Ocean
Modeling
Framework (COMF3.6) and have four daily nowcast and forecast cycles
at 03,
09, 15, and 21 UTC.

The meteorological forcing used to run SSCOFS will be based on the
National Weather Service (NWS) North American Mesoscale (NAM) weather
prediction model winds (for both nowcast and forecast). The NCEP`s
operational meteorological forecast products of Global Forecast
System
(GFS) will be used as a backup for the NAM.

SSCOFS will rely on the Global Real-Time Ocean Forecast System
(G-RTOFS)
to provide open boundary temperature, salinity and sub-tidal water
level,
and North Pacific Tidal Database (ENPAC2015) from the ADvanced
CIRCulation
(ADCIRC) model will be used to generate tidal forcing.The National
Water
Models river discharge outputs will provide freshwater inputs at
the
selected rivers.

Similar to the existing OFS, SSCOFS will have two types of NetCDF
output
files.One is a field/gridded file with a 1 hour time interval and
the
other is a station/point output file with a 6 minute time interval.
In
these files, water level, water temperature, water salinity and
currents
will be the model output variables. Other variables, such as wind
speed
and heat flux, which will be used to drive the model, will also be
included in the files.

Proposed SSCOFS Product Outputs:
Gridded fields and station/point nowcast/forecast guidance will be
available on the CO-OPS THREDDS server
http://opendap.co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/thredds/catalog.html

and on NCEP Web services under sscofs.YYYYMMDD
https://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/nosofs/v3.6
https://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/nosofs/prod
https://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/data/nccf/com/nosofs/v3.6
https://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/data/nccf/com/nosofs/prod
ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/nosofs/v3.6
ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/nosofs/prod

Parallel data will be available in the following locations:

https://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/nosofs/v3.6
https://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/nosofs/para
https://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/data/nccf/com/nosofs/v3.6
https://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/data/nccf/com/nosofs/para
ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/nosofs/v3.6
ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/nosofs/para
NOTE: The ftpprd link only works for FTP-enabled web browsers

Where YYYYMMDD is year, month, and day.

In addition to the model`s output files, its input files will also be
found in the above ftp site.  The input files names also follow
the new
file naming convention as previously mentioned.

Model Input Files:
Initial files for nowcast:
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.init.nowcast.nc

Surface meteorological forcing files:
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.met.nowcast.nc
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.met.forecast.nc
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.hflux.nowcast.nc
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.hflux.forecast.nc

OBC forcing files:
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.obc.nc

River forcing files:
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.river.nc.tar

Runtime input files:
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.nowcast.in
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.forecast.in

Log files:
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.corms.log
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.jlogfile.log
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.nowcast.log
sscofs.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.forecsat.log


SSCOFS web product are displayed on the CO-OPS webpage:
at https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/ofs/sscofs/sscofs.html

Additional information about SSCOFS will be available after
operational
implementation at:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/ofs/sscofs/sscofs_info.html

NCEP urges all users to ensure their decoders can handle changes in
content order and volume changes. These elements may change with
future
NCEP model implementations. NCEP will make every attempt to alert
users to
these changes before implementation.

Send comments on this proposal for the upgrade of changes to the
existing
OFS and the implementation of SSCOFS by June 6, 2024, to:

Dr. Aijun Zhang
NOS/Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services
Silver Spring, MD
Email: Aijun.Zhang@noaa.gov

For questions regarding the dataflow aspects, please contact:
Tony Salemi
NCEP/NCO Dataflow Team Lead (Acting)
College Park, MD
Email: ncep.pmb.dataflow@noaa.gov


National Public Information Statements are online at:

https://www.weather.gov/notification/