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Secure websites use HTTPSThe Surge & Tide Operational Forecast System (STOFS) is one of the oldest-running coastal surge operational forecast systems developed by NOAA's Office of Coast Survey in collaboration with other NOS, NWS, and academic partners.
From 2012 to 2020, the ADCIRC-based ESTOFS (STOFS was formerly called Extratropical Surge & Tide Operational Forecast System) was deployed for the US East and Gulf Coasts and the Caribbean (ESTOFS-Atlantic), US West Coast and Hawaii (ESTOFS-Pacific), and for the US Territories in Micronesia from Palau to Marshall Islands (ESTOFS-Micronesia). Global STOFS (STOFS-2D-Global) became operational in late 2020 and replaced the three existing operational domains with better spatial resolution and superior physics. STOFS-2D-Global was upgraded three times from 2020-2024 (July 2021, January 2023, May 2024) to improve model performance, resolution, and coverage. In addition, the SCHISM-based 3-D STOFS component for the Atlantic Basin (STOFS-3D-Atlantic) was implemented into operations in January 2023 as the first SCHISM-based operational model at NOAA. STOFS-3D-Atlantic was also upgraded in May 2024. In late 2025/early 2026, STOFS will undergo another upgrade for these two components, and a third component—SCHISM-based STOFS-3D-Pacific—will be put into operations.
STOFS-2D-Global mesh and coverage.
STOFS-3D coverage.
Horizontal Mesh (3D).
The Unified Forecast System (UFS) is a community-based, coupled, comprehensive Earth Modeling System. The UFS Coastal application is a project under development by NOAA and NCAR to meet coastal forecasting needs. It integrates multiple coastal model components including SCHISM, ADCIRC, ROMS, and FVCOM, along with coupling infrastructure to WW3 and CICE.
The UFS Coastal model is being developed through a fork of the ufs-weather-model (UFS-WM) and requires specialized infrastructure to support its coastal coupling.
Regression Test (RT) System
The UFS Coastal RT system ensures that code updates do not break existing model functionality. Each coastal model has at least one RT case, with tests conducted primarily on NOAA/MSU Hercules and periodically on TACC/Frontera.
RT Components:
Access and Documentation:
Illustration of the products resulting from the interface of coastal ocean modeling with other
numerical models.
Office of Coast Survey's Development Laboratory started a collaboration with National Hurricane Center's Storm Surge Unit to explore augmenting the current operational PSurge model with an unstructured grid model to provide higher resolution results closer to the time of a hurricane landfall. As a part of this ongoing project, use of different forcing components as well as coupling is explored to achieve results with higher skills.
Compound inland-coastal flooding occurs because of concurrence of ocean related storm surge and inland flooding by heavy precipitation. The increasing number of compound flooding events highlights the necessity for development of modeling capabilities to support accurate model guidance which are capable of resolving such complex interaction between inland and coastal flooding. Our aim is to address what would be the best practice for producing high quality compound inland-coastal flooding given available coastal and inland hydrology modeling frameworks. We would like to look at this question from a scientific and engineering point of view.
Coastal ocean and inland hydrology models coupling We are collaborating with our NWS, OAR, NOS partners, model developers, and wider community to develop the required infrastructure to perform inland-coastal coupling for the NOS' operational coastal ocean models. Currently we are testing flexible freshwater source terms for seamless NWM and SCHISM coupling for US East Coast.
Delaware Bay region. The left panel represents the Total Water Level above the ground including NWM discharges and Precipitation. The right panel represents the extra inundation due to compound inland-coastal and freshwater flooding (by subtracting total water surface elevation of full 3D case without NWM and precipitation from the one that includes NWM and precipitation). All model configurations and results are pre-decisional and for official use only.
Philadelphia Airport region (blue marker). The left panel represents the Total Water Level above the ground including NWM discharges and Precipitation. The right panel represents the extra inundation due to compound inland-coastal and freshwater flooding (by subtracting total water surface elevation of full 3D case without NWM and precipitation from the one that includes NWM and precipitation). All model configurations and results are pre-decisional and for official use only.
Storm Surge Modeling