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The Ocean Prediction Center (OPC), established in 1995, is one of the
National Centers for Environmental Prediction The United States National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) delivers national and global weather, water, climate and space weather guidance, forecasts, warnings and analyses to its Partners and External User Communities. These prod ...
's (NCEP's) original six service centers. Until 2003, the name of the organization was the Marine Prediction Center.Ocean Prediction Center (2004)
Ocean Prediction Center: 2003 Accomplishments.
Retrieved on 2008-09-03.
Its origins are traced back to the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic'' in 1912. The OPC issues
forecasts Forecasting is the process of making predictions based on past and present data. Later these can be compared (resolved) against what happens. For example, a company might estimate their revenue in the next year, then compare it against the actual ...
up to five days in advance for ocean areas north of 31° north latitude and west of 35° west longitude in the Atlantic, and across the northeast Pacific north of 30° north latitude and east of 160° east longitude. Until recently, the OPC provided forecast points for
tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
s north of 20° north latitude and east of the 60° west longitude to the
National Hurricane Center The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is the division of the United States' NOAA/National Weather Service responsible for tracking and predicting tropical weather systems between the Prime Meridian and the 140th meridian west poleward to the 3 ...
. OPC is composed of two branches: the Ocean Forecast Branch and the Ocean Applications Branch.


History

The first attempt as a marine weather program within the United States was initiated in
New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster.
; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...
, by the
United States Army Signal Corps The United States Army Signal Corps (USASC) is a branch of the United States Army that creates and manages communications and information systems for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of Ma ...
. A January 23, 1873, memo directed the New Orleans Signal Observer to transcribe meteorological data from the ship logs of those arriving in port. Marine forecasting responsibility transferred from the United States Navy to the Weather Bureau in 1904, which enabled the receipt of timely observations from ships at sea. The basis for OPC's mission can be traced back to the sinking of the ''Titanic'' in April 1912. In response to that tragedy, an international commission was formed to determine requirements for safer ocean voyages. In 1914, the commission's work resulted in the
International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) is an international maritime treaty that sets minimum safety standards in the construction, equipment and operation of merchant ships. The International Maritime Organization ...
, of which the United States is one of the original signatories. In 1957, in order to help address marine issues, the
United States Weather Bureau The National Weather Service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weather-related products to organizations and the public for the p ...
started to publish the ''
Mariners Weather Log The ''Mariners Weather Log'' is a triannual magazine that has been published by the United States Weather Bureau, the Environmental Science Services Administration, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration since 1957. It documents si ...
'' bi-monthly publication to report past weather conditions primarily over Northern Hemisphere oceans, information regarding the globe's tropical cyclone seasons, to publish monthly climatologies for use of those at sea, and to encourage voluntary ship observations from vessels at sea. From 1957 through 1966, the United States Weather Bureau's Office of Climatology published the Log. From 1966 through the summer of 1995, the Environmental Data Service, which became the
National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) was created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to operate and manage the United States environmental satellite programs, and manage the data g ...
, published the magazine. Within the United States National Weather Service (NWS), forecast weather maps began to be published by offices in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, and
Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
for public use. North Atlantic forecasts were shifted from a closed
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
endeavor to a National Weather Service product suite via radiofacsimile in 1971, while northeast Pacific forecasts became publicly available by the same method in 1972. Between 1986 and 1989, the portion of the National Meteorological Center (NMC) known as the Ocean Products Center (OPC) was responsible for marine weather forecasting guidance within the NWS. Between August 1989 and 1995, the unit named the Marine Forecast Branch also was involved in providing objective analysis and forecast products for marine and oceanographic variables. When the
National Centers for Environmental Prediction The United States National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) delivers national and global weather, water, climate and space weather guidance, forecasts, warnings and analyses to its Partners and External User Communities. These prod ...
was created, the Marine Prediction Center (MPC) was organized to assume the U.S. obligation to issue warnings and forecasts for portions of the North
Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
and North
Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
oceans. MPC was expected to be moved from
Camp Springs, Maryland Camp Springs is an unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The population was 22,734 at the 2020 census. Camp Springs is not an official post office designation; the area is divided ...
, to
Monterey, California Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bo ...
, but this did not occur. The Center was renamed the Ocean Prediction Center (OPC) on January 12, 2003.


Products

OPC's Ocean Forecast Branch issues warnings and forecasts in print and graphical formats for up five days into the future. Over 100 forecast products are issued daily. They cover the North
Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
from the west coast of Europe to the U.S. and Canadian east coasts, and the North Pacific Ocean from the U.S. and Canadian west coast to the east coast of Asia. OPC weather forecasts and warnings for these areas primarily ensure the safety of ocean-crossing commercial ships and other vessels on the high seas. Embedded in these high seas areas are smaller offshore zones off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. These zones extend from near the coast seaward to just beyond the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zones, out to about . OPC services ensure the safety of the extensive commercial and recreational fishing, boating, and shipping activities in these offshore waters. OPC began to produce experimental gridded significant wave height forecasts in 2006, a first step toward digital marine service for high seas and offshore areas. Additional gridded products such as surface pressure and winds are under development. Recently, OPC began to use the NWS operational extratropical
storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the n ...
model output to provide experimental
extratropical storm Extratropical cyclones, sometimes called mid-latitude cyclones or wave cyclones, are low-pressure areas which, along with the anticyclones of high-pressure areas, drive the weather over much of the Earth. Extratropical cyclones are capable of ...
surge guidance for coastal weather forecast offices to assist them in
coastal flood warning A coastal flood warning is an hazardous weather statement issued by the Weather Forecast Offices of the National Weather Service in the United States which indicates coastal flooding is either imminent or occurring along the coast of the Atlantic ...
and forecast operations.


Role in the unified surface analysis

The OPC provides an important role in the production of the
National Weather Service The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...
Unified
Surface Analysis A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. It is the portion or region of the object that can first be perceived by an observer using the senses of sight and touch, and is ...
. After the
Weather Prediction Center The Weather Prediction Center (WPC), located in College Park, Maryland, is one of nine service centers under the umbrella of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), a part of the National Weather Service (NWS), which in turn is p ...
, or WPC, sends out their analysis for the synoptic hour, OPC cuts and stitches the WPC analysis to its area. The National Hurricane Center, or NHC, stitches the analysis from the Honolulu Forecast Office onto their map, before it is sent up to OPC. The OPC analysts then stitch together the entire analysis, and send it to the world through their website. The analysis covers much of the
Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the Equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined as being in the same celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the solar system as Earth's Nort ...
, except for eastern
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and the western half of
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
.


Quality control of marine observations

In 1994, OPC began to quality control global surface marine observations. Using an automated algorithm and interactive system, forecasters examine the latest observations from voluntary observing ships and drifting and moored platforms and compare them against short-projection model runs. Worldwide surface marine observations come to OPC via the
World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. The WMO originated from the Internati ...
's
Global Telecommunications System The Global Telecommunication System (GTS) is a secured communication network enabling real-time exchange of meteorological data from weather stations, satellites and numerical weather prediction centres, providing critical meteorological forecastin ...
in real time. These quality control measures remove spurious data before the data are ingested into models to initialize forecasts. Several hundred of these observations are interactively examined daily. In addition, the quality controlled data are used by OPC forecasters to determine if gale, storm, or hurricane-force wind warnings are warranted.


Ocean Applications Branch

The Ocean Applications Branch plays an important role in enhancing OPC operations and services. One example is the adaptation of ocean surface winds observed from the QuikSCAT satellite in early 2000. Prior to the QuikSCAT launch, there was no ability to observe, verify, and warn of hurricane-force wind conditions, areas where wind speed exceeds , often associated with strong winter ocean storms. With QuikSCAT data routinely available in 2000, OPC began to issue hurricane-force wind warnings. In the 2006-2007 winter storm season, over 100 hurricane-force wind warnings were issued for North Pacific and North Atlantic oceans to warn ships of these most severe weather hazard conditions over major shipping routes. Preliminary results from a recent study estimates that in the absence of good information about extra-tropical ocean storms, the annual loss to container and dry bulk shipping would be on the order of more than $500 million. Operational marine warnings and forecasts reduce the above estimated annual loss by nearly one half. OPC has a number of ongoing research-to-operations transition efforts that will lead to a suite of new oceanographic analysis and forecast products, such as ocean temperatures and currents based on real time observations and advanced global and basin scale ocean forecasting models. Global ocean
sea surface temperature Sea surface temperature (SST), or ocean surface temperature, is the ocean temperature close to the surface. The exact meaning of ''surface'' varies according to the measurement method used, but it is between and below the sea surface. Air mass ...
s and currents are now available on the OPC website.


See also

*
Environmental Modeling Center The Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) is a United States Government agency, which improves numerical weather, marine and climate predictions at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), through a broad program of research in dat ...
* MAFOR *
Shipping Forecast The Shipping Forecast is a BBC Radio broadcast of weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the coasts of the British Isles. It is produced by the Met Office and broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. ...
*
Space Weather Prediction Center The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), named the Space Environment Center (SEC) until 2007, is a laboratory and service center of the US National Weather Service (NWS), part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), loca ...
*
Storm Prediction Center The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) is a US government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight a ...


References

{{Reflist, 2


External links


Official websiteExperimental OPC Facebook Page
National Weather Service Maritime organizations Weather prediction