NWS Southern Region SOO Meeting, July 11-13, 2006, Huntsville, Ala

**"Marine Forecasting in an Evolving NWS"** Breakout Sessions Summary:

Questions Posed:

1\) What are our strengths and weaknesses? 2) How do we improve our
service?

**Session I - attended by 11 folks (9 SRHQ/SOOs, 2 NASA).**

As background to our discussion, we were briefed on efforts from two
national NWS teams underway.

The first is the [Wave Guidance Team]{.underline} working primarily to
improve the numerical model guidance flowing to the field offices.
Current model guidance is not at a high enough spatial resolution, and
it comes no closer than 25nm of the shore. In the "short-" term, this
team is exploring expanding on WR efforts to make broader use the SWAN
model, perhaps as an "add-on" to local offices running the WS WRF. In
the long-term, the Wave Watch model will be improved. One area of
obvious potential improvement is to have that model incorporate Gulf
Stream information. Given NASA's prior work in Gulf Stream remote
sensing (MODIS SSTs), opportunities for collaboration likely exist here.

The second team is the [Marine GPRA Goals Evolution Team]{.underline}
working to move NWS measures for Marine more toward Percent Correct
scoring rather than the current Equitable Skill Scores that take a heavy
hit from False Alarms, which are notorious given our lack of observation
density. The other effort being moving to a new measure, is to help
ensure the future goals are not increased unless commensurate funding or
technology is fielded to pave the way for expected increased
performance.

**Strengths:**

\- diversity of marine users; 70ft or larger commercial vessels vs 20ft
or less leisure craft

\- solid relationships exist between our offices and the user community

\- phone briefings regularly provided to augment product suite

\- being able to identify when models are "out to lunch", pressure
gradient force not realistic with winds, and therefore to discount
model-based guidance

**Weaknesses:**

\- LACK OF OBSERVATIONS

\- defined watch/advisory/warning criteria not respective of diversity
of users

**How do we improve our service?**

\- many of our forecasting techniques (Brett Schneider) are dated and
could likely be revised by mating modern science and technology to the
issues at hand.

\- Wave Height estimation from LIDAR is possible. Can future
satellite-borne instruments remotely sense wave height, or at least, at
fine enough spatial resolution, provide wind information to then drive
wave height estimators?

\- phased-array radar technology is being tested in South FL to measure
wind data that can then be used to estimate observed wave height, but
this technology is not widely available to the NWS community for perusal
in a collaborative effort, despite attempts to make the connections.

\- many of the buoys being fielded as part of other ventures often only
measure current, which is of little use for the NWS.

\- WR's Eureka office is employing SWAN model-based data/forecasts to
feed GFE, text generation, and very specific inlet forecasts that their
users love. Perhaps we could employ the same approach in SR.

\- Ensure QuikScat data feed does not cease.

**Session II - attended by 5 folks (4 SRHQ/SOOs, 1 NASA).**

**Strengths:**

\- surf zone forecasts issued by a number of SR offices

\- solid relationships with diverse user community, especially
commerce-related partners operating in the NW Gulf of Mexico

\- phone briefings regularly provided to augment product suite

\- radio reception of reported observed conditions are collected in OMR
or PLS products

**Weaknesses:**

\- LACK OF OBSERVATIONS

\- not fully making use of contacts among commerce partners that could
provide observational help

**How do we improve our service?**

\- SR surf zone forecasts could be more standardized between offices

\- SR surf zone forecasts could be utilized to deliver forecast
information based fields such as the kind our NASA partners can remotely
sense. Examples could be forecasts or indices based on red tide
movement/intensity, suspended matter, or water quality. Exposure to
these datasets in our forecasts would be an easy step toward showing
prrof of our collaboration with NASA and NOAA partners.

\- A number of offices would benefit from a "Marine MADIS" observation
data collection system that could more easily ingest the numerous
observations of opportunity available from the platforms operating
within the sphere of where we provide marine services.

\- The data collection of the sort mentioned above could fall under the
purview of an invigorated Port Meteorological Officer (PMO) program that
aggressively seeks out these data and works to foster these key
relationships with the marine user and partner community.

\- The voluntary observing ship (VOS) program could also be energized to
more aggressively incorporate ship observations, especially along key
commerce routes where we know there is observation regularity.

\- Opportunities exist to improve our overall services for
aviation/marine interests serving in the near-shore waters of our SR
offices. Multiple flights per day to and from these platforms may
benefit from our services.

\- Numerous offshore rigs in the waters from Louisiana west through
Texas are potential contacts to expand our network of observation
platforms, or to consider cost-sharing collaborations on a variety of
topics.

\- Ground-based or constant-level balloons, ala the kind that keep watch
over our southern borders could be employed to mount radars that could
be used to detect wave height or wind information. Other platforms that
could be used could be remotely-operated Webcams to monitor conditions,
UAVs for data gathering.