Regional Hydrodynamic Model Outputs of the NOAA Northwest Gulf of America Operational Forecast System (NWGOFS)

NCEI manages the long-term archive of model output files for the hydrodynamic model-based Operation Forecast Systems (OFS) developed and implemented by the National Ocean Service (NOS) to support navigation in U.S. waters. This system is a national network of hydrodynamic models that provides operational nowcast and forecast guidance (out to 48 hours) on parameters such as water levels, water temperature, salinity, and currents. OFS runs on NOAA's High Performance Computing Systems (HPCS) in a standard Coastal Ocean Modeling Framework (COMF) developed by The Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS).

The Northern Gulf of America Operational Forecast System (NGOFS) was implemented by NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) to provide the maritime user community with short-term predictions of water levels, water currents, water temperatures and salinity of the northern Gulf of America. NGOFS used a numerical hydrodynamic model to generate the nowcast and forecast information; therefore, they should be considered as model-generated nowcast and forecast guidance.

NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) upgraded the previous Northern Gulf of America Operational Forecast System (NGOFS, NEGOFS, and NWGOFS) to the new Northern Gulf of America Operational Forecast System (NGOFS2) which extended the model domain to cover Lower Mississippi River, Barataria Bay, Lake Pontchartrain, Corpus Christi Bay, and Mexican coastal water without sacrificing model resolutions.