Whitepaper on the Development of a Unified Forecast System for Coastal Total Water Level Prediction

The UFS Coastal Applications Team (CAT) for Water Quantity (i.e. physical properties) is developing model evaluation recommendations for selecting NOAA’s next-generation coupled coastal models. Under UFS CAT Water Quantity, plans were developed for three applications: (a) Total Water Level (TWL) prediction, (b) Risk reduction, and (c) Safe and efficient navigation. The present white paper describes the design of the first of these applications, namely TWL prediction on weather scales. This model aims to provide TWL predictions for an estimated 40% of the U.S. population that live under the threat of inundation ranging from nuisance flooding to compound flooding from tropical cyclones and extratropical storms.