Paul Fanelli NOAA National Ocean Service (NOS)

1. Improvements to the CO-OPS Storm QuickLook Product for Real-Time Storm Surge Monitoring for the 2014 Hurricane Season Paul Fanelli NOAA National Ocean Service (NOS) Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) paul.fanelli@noaa.gov 1305 East-West Hwy Silver Spring, MD 20910 www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/quicklook.shtml quicklook@noaa.gov 1

2. CO-OPS Role in Providing Storm Tide Information • Operates a network of over 200 long-term water level gauges along the coast of the U.S. and its territories. • Most locations also include meteorological observations of winds, barometric pressure and air & water temperature • Since 2006, a number of platforms along the Gulf of Mexico have been hardened to withstand the most severe conditions. Five Gulf locations now house NOAA Sentinels, single pile platforms that can withstand a category 4 hurricane. • Water level and meteorological data are collected every 6 minutes and undergo 24 x 7 quality control by CO-OPS’ Continuous Operational Real-Time Monitoring System (CORMS) • Real-time data is available at www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov. • Disseminates tide and tidal current predictions at thousands of locations along the coast and within bays and estuaries. • Tide predictions are a critical part of projecting coastal inundation during tropical cyclone events. • Provides NWS with maximum storm tide and storm surge measurements following a tropical cyclone for post-storm reporting and model validation 2

3. Storm QuickLook Product • Packages CO-OPS data at coastal locations impacted by a tropical cyclone into a robust web product. • Provides a synopsis of near real-time oceanographic and meteorological observations at locations affected by the storm • Initiated when a tropical storm or hurricane warning is issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) for the U.S. coast or its territories • Updated following NWS public advisories and at landfall (4x daily) • Product is linked on the Tides and Current home page, Tides Online and available through NOAAWatch 3

4. Existing QuickLook Product GIS map showing satellite imagery, storm track & intensity information, with NOS tide gauge locations highlighted Can adjust water level datum (MLLW/NAVD88), measurement units (Standard/Metric) and time zone (Local/UTC). Time series plots of water level, wind, barometric pressure & temperature, updating in real-time - every 6 minutes. Water level and meteorological analysis, time and height of next high tides and NWS advisory Text. 4

5. Enhancements in Progress • Adding Mean Sea Level (MSL) as an option to display water level observations and predictions in addition to Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW) and North American Vertical Datum (NAVD88). This option will better allow comparisons between observations and NWS forecasted storm tide values • Displaying the Historical Maximum Water Level referenced to the same datum as the water level observations for easy comparison • Presently Historical Maximum water level is displayed as the height above Mean Higher High Water (MHHW) 5

6. Next Generation Storm QuickLook Product • CO-OPS has begun gathering requirements for the next phase of the QuickLook product. • Enhancements will focus on two areas: • Improving the geographical map display • Replace the existing static map within the product with a dynamic map, where users can zoom, pan, etc. and view updated satellite and/or radar imagery. • Allow users to easily access NOS water level and meteorological data through the map interface, rather than having to navigate to CO-OPS’ web page (tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov) separately. • Improvements to data display within the product • Larger plots. • Allow next high tide predictions to update on-the-fly based on user selected options, rather than static values on Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW). • Provide a summary of present observations in tabular format below time-series plots. • Provide additional information such as maximum 24 hour storm tide values. • Planned implementation will be prior to the 2014 hurricane season. 6

7. QuickLook 2.0 7

8. Next Generation QuickLook Product 8

9. Future Development • Collaborate with the National Weather Service to integrate storm tide/storm surge forecast information with NOS observed water level data to provide more robust and comprehensive storm surge information to the public. • Assist NWS in alleviating public confusion between tidal and geodetic datums and how they relate to storm surge inundation. • Package storm tide information for significant extratropical cyclones, (including Nor’easters) in a similar fashion as tropical cyclones to convey the same storm surge information. • Develop automated tools to display observational water level data in a similar way as the Storm QuickLook product during significant non-tropical events. • Display non-CO-OPS observational data • Coastal-Marine Automated Network (C-MAN) • Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) 9

10. Questions? quicklook@noaa.gov 10 Image courtesy of the NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory