223
NOUS41 KWBC 101125 AAA
PNSWSH

Service Change Notice 24-77 Updated
National Ocean Service Headquarters Silver Spring MD
Relayed by National Weather Service Headquarters Silver Spring MD
725 AM EDT Tue Sep 10 2024

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

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

Subject: Updated: NOS Operational Forecast System (OFS) Framework
Version
Updates and Implementation of Oceanographic Forecast Modeling Systems
for
the Salish Sea and Columbia River: Effective on or about September
16,
2024

Updated to change effective date from September 9, 2024 to September
16,
2024.

Effective on or about Monday, September 16, 2024 beginning at 1500
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), NOAA/National Ocean Services
(NOS)
Coastal Ocean Modeling Framework (COMF) will be updated to version
3.6.
With this update, the new Salish Sea and Columbia River Operational
Forecast System (SSCOFS) will be implemented by NWS/National Centers
for
Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Central Operations (NCO).

The following are planned updates:

1.  Changes to the existing OFS

With this COMF version update and in accordance with NCOs
implementation
standards, all NOS OFS model output file names will comply with
the
following new file naming convention.  The file contents for
ROMS-based
OFS remain unchanged, the contents for FVCOM-based OFS have minor
changes
(see section 2 and 3 in details):

Nowcast and forecast station output files will change from:

nos.{OFS}.stations.[nowcast|forecast].{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.stations.[nowcast|forecast].nc

The three-dimensional (3D) fields nowcast(n) and forecast(f)
output
files will change from:

nos.{OFS}.fields.[n|f]{HHH}.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.fields.[n|f]{HHH}.nc

The optional two-dimensional (2D) nowcast(n) and forecast(f) output
files
will change from:

nos.{OFS}.2ds.[n|f]{HHH}.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.2ds.[n|f]{HHH}.nc

Model input files will change from:

nos.{OFS}.init.nowcast.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.init.nowcast.nc

Surface meteorological forcing files will change from:

nos.{OFS}.met.[forecast|nowcast].{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.met.[forecast|nowcast].nc

nos.{OFS}.hflux.[forecast|nowcast].{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.hflux.[forecast|nowcast].nc

The input forcing condition files will change from:

nos.{OFS}.[obc|clim|river].{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.[obc|clim|river].nc

nos.{OFS}.river.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc.tar
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.river.nc.tar

Runtime input files will change from:

nos.{OFS}.[forecast|nowcast].{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.in
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.[forecast|nowcast].in

Log files will change from:

nos.{OFS}.[corms|forecast|jlogfile|nowcast].{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.log
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.[corms|forecast|jlogfile|nowcast].log

The following will change for the cbofs, ciofs, dbofs, gomofs, tbofs,
and
wcofs OFS:

nos.{OFS}.roms.tides.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.roms.tides.nc

And for the wcofs OFS only:

nos.{OFS}.avg.[forecast|nowcast].{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.nc
to
{OFS}.t{CC}z.{YYYYMMDD}.avg.[forecast|nowcast].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 fixes are included in the
updated FVCOM package which is used in this implementation.

The following ice-related float variables are 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.

The delivery time for all lake OFS will be delayed about 15 minutes
due
to reactivating ice forecasting.

3.  Fields Output format changes of FVCOM-based OFS

To be more CF convention compliant, "time" variable is defined in
double
precision with units of seconds.  Two time related variables of Itime
and
Itime2 are removed from the NetCDF output files.  In the by-product
of
regular grid fields output NetCDF files, the variable name of
"ocean_time" is replaced with "time".

The delivery time for all FVCOM-based OFS will be delayed between 5
to 15
minutes due to the updated FVCOM package taking longer time and
reactivating ice forecasting for all Great Lakes OFS.  Comparing with
the
current production products, sfbofs delays about 5 minutes, ngofs2
delays
about 12 minutes, and all Great Lakes OFS (leofs, lmhofs, loofs, and
lsofs) delay about 15 minutes.

4.  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 once
SSCOFS
becomes operational:

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
nos.creofs.corms.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.log
nos.creofs.jlogfile.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.log
nos.creofs.forecast.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.log
nos.creofs.nowcast.{YYYYMMDD}.t{CC}z.log
creofs.status

The SSCOFS unstructured triangular mesh has 239,734 nodes and 433,410
elements.  The vertical grid follows the terrain and consists of 10
spatially-varying sigma-layers.  The resolution varies 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 SSCOFS operates within the NOS Coastal Ocean Modeling Framework
(COMF3.6) and has four daily nowcast and forecast cycles at 03, 09,
15,
and 21 UTC.

The meteorological forcing used to run SSCOFS is based on the 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) are used as a backup for the NAM.

SSCOFS relies 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 is used to generate tidal forcing.  The
National Water Models river discharge outputs provide freshwater
inputs
at the selected rivers.

Similar to the existing OFS, SSCOFS has 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
are
the model output variables.  Other variables, such as wind speed and
heat
flux, which are used to drive the model, are also included in the
files.

New 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 can 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}.forecast.log

Other:
sscofs.status

SSCOFS web product is displayed on the CO-OPS webpage:

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

SSCOFS predictions are used by commercial and recreational mariners;
fishermen; emergency managers; search and rescue responders and NWS
marine weather forecasters.  The development and implementation of
SSCOFS
was funded by the Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed (COMT) as a
joint
project of the NOS/Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and
Services (CO-OPS), the NOS/Office of Coast Survey (OCS), the Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the U.S. Integrated Ocean
Observing
System (IOOS), IOOS Regional Association in Pacific Northwest
(NANOOS),
the FVCOM development group at the University of Massachusetts,
Dartmouth, and NCO.

SSCOFS products are monitored 24 x 7 by both NCO and CO-OPS
Continuous
Operating Real-time Management System (CORMS) personnel.

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.

As part of NCEPs standard 30-day parallel testing, the new output
products will be available here:

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

Any questions, comments or requests regarding this implementation
should
be directed to the contacts below.  We will review any feedback and
decide whether to proceed.

If you have any questions concerning these changes, please contact:

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:

Margaret Curtis
NCEP/NCO Dataflow Team Lead (Acting)
College Park, MD
Email: ncep.pmb.dataflow@noaa.gov

National Service Change Notices are online at:

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