Development of NOAA's Tampa Bay Operational Forecast System

A Tampa Bay operational forecast system is under development using the Regional Ocean Modeling System community model to provide short-term forecast guidance of water levels, current velocities, salinity and temperatures. The model domain includes Tampa Bay, the intra-coastal waterway, inner portions of the west Florida continental shelf, and Sarasota Bay. The model system was calibrated with two scenario model simulations: a tidal simulation and a synoptic hindcast running from June 1990 to September 1991. The tidal simulation was forced with tide constituents from ADCIRC EastCoast 2001 (Advanced Circulation Model) and did not include river inputs and atmospheric forcing, and water temperature and salinity stayed constant. The synoptic hindcast was initialized with temperature and salinity conditions generated from monthly measurements from the Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County, and forced by surface atmospheric forcing generated from the North America Regional Reanalysis, daily river discharges from USGS measurements, and the same lateral open boundary conditions as the tidal simulation and observed non-tidal water levels. The simulated model results of water levels, current velocities, salinity and temperatures were compared with a comprehensive observed dataset collected during the National Ocean Service's Tampa Bay Oceanographic Project (TOP) conducted between June 1990 and September 1991. This comparison was made using the NOS standard skill assessment software for operational forecast models. The TOP data set includes ADCP current meter data at 40 fixed stations, water levels at 16 stations, time series of salinity and temperature data at 36 fixed stations mostly co-located with current meters, and salinity and temperature profiles (CTD) along six transects.