REVIEW OF THE NOPP REAL-TIME FORECASTING SYSTEM FOR WINDS, WAVES AND STORM TIDES OF TROPICAL CYCLONES

Scott C. HAGEN

University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Boulevard, Orlando, FL 32816-2450, USA

shagen@mail.ucf.edu

Hans C. GRABER1, Vincent J. CARDONE2, Andrew T. COX2, Robert E. JENSEN3,

Donald N. SLINN4, and Mark D. POWELL5

1University of Miami, 2Oceanweather, Inc., 3US Army Corps of Engineers,

4University of Florida, 5Hurricane Research Division/AOML/NOAA

Abstract: In this paper we present the NOPP (National Oceanographic Partnership Program) real time forecasting system for winds, waves and storm tides due to tropical cyclones.  The NOPP real time forecasting system was operating in a semi-operational mode during the 2004 & 2005 Hurricane seasons.  On a six-hourly cycle threshold wind radii and significant wave height plots along the official National Hurricane Center forecast track were updated routinely and accessible through an internal website. The forecast system provided routinely wind fields every 30 minutes using high-resolution initial wind “snapshots” from H*WIND. These winds were advanced in space and time for five days along the official track and forced both a third-generation wave model and a storm tide model. Radiation stress fields were provided by the wave model and coupled to produce storm tide predictions along the coastline during landfalling hurricanes.  The system is presently implemented in semi- (for the majority of the domain) and fully-operational (for portions of the domain) mode during the 2006 Hurricane season.

Keywords: Real-time forecasting, wave modeling, tidal modeling, surge modeling, tropical cyclones, hurricanes.