The Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) has unveiled the new Northern Gulf of Mexico Operational Forecasts Systems (NGOFS) including two nested Northeast and Northwest Gulf of Mexico Operational Forecast Systems (NEGOFS/NWGOFS) developed in a joint project with the Office of Coast Survey's Coast Survey Development Laboratory and CO-OPS.
This OFS is based on Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM) and is used to forecast water levels, currents, temperature and salinity for Northern Gulf of Mexico and its adjacent coastal area. The forecasts, which extend out to 48 hours, will support the maritime user community in navigation, emergency response, ecological forecasts and so forth.
NGOFS runs on NOAA's High Performance Computers in the Coastal Ocean Modeling Framework developed by the Oceanographic Division's Modeling Team of CO-OPS. As a result, NGOFS has direct access to NWS operational meteorological products to make the model run more reliably.