NOUS41 KWBC 051521

PNSWSH

Service Change Notice 12-40

National Weather Service Headquarters Washington DC

1007 AM EST Mon Nov 5 2012

Relayed by the National Weather Service

To: Subscribers:

-Family of Services

-NOAA Weather Wire Service

-Emergency Managers Weather Information Network

-NOAAPORT

Other NWS partners and NWS employees

From: Peter Stone

Chief, Oceanographic Division

NOS Center for Operational Oceanographic Products

and Services (CO-OPS)

Subject: NOS/CO-OPS is implementing model guidance SHEF

Bulletins, Effective December 5, 2012.

Effective December 5, 2012, at 1500 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), NOS/CO-OPS will implement SHEF Bulletins for CO-OPS Operational Forecast System (OFS) water level model guidance.

CO-OPS produces SHEF bulletins of observed water level and meteorological data as well as astronomical tides. A new set of SHEF bulletins will be generated with total water level model guidance from the 13 operational CO-OPS OFS models. Ten OFS models produce 48-hour model guidance of time series data updated every 6 hours, and three models provide 24-hour model guidance updated every 6 hours. 

Model guidance is provided at the CO-OPS tide gauge locations. Thus, the OFS Water Level SHEF bulletins will contain the full 48-hour or 24-hour model guidance of 30-minute data, and will be issued every 6 hours to remain consistent with the OFS output.

Modeled water levels are total water levels (astronomical tide plus surge). It is noted that CO-OPS models are not designed as a storm surge model though meteorological conditions, such as winds and air pressure, are taken into account. Although the Operational Forecast Systems produce model guidance of currents, water temperature, and salinity, these data will not be included in the SHEF bulletins; however, they can be viewed and downloaded at the CO-OPS Web site. The Great Lakes SHEF OFS data will be in Local Standard Time (LST), whereas the rest of the OFS data will be in UTC, to meet user requirements.

Information about NOS/CO-OPS Products and Services can be found at

http://www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/index.shtml

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

Kathleen Bailey

NOS/CO-OPS

Silver Spring, MD

Email: Kathleen.Bailey@noaa.gov

For questions on the CO-OPS OFS products and modeled water level data, please contact:

Dr. Aijun Zhang

NOS/CO-OPS

Silver Spring, MD

Email: Aijun.Zhang@noaa.gov

For general questions on CO-OPS products and services, please contact:

Todd Ehret

NOS/CO-OPS/User Services Team

Silver Spring, MD

Email: tide.prediction@noaa.gov

National Service Change Notices are online at:

http://www.weather.gov/os/notif.htm

$$