HYCOM surface velocity fields for the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Straits at 1km resolution for January 2014 and July 2014

The HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) is configured for the entire Gulf of Mexico. HYCOM uses isopycnal coordinates in the deep stratified ocean, pressure coordinates in unstratified regions including the mixed layer, and terrain-following coordinates in shallow coastal regions. The simulation has 20 layers in the vertical and 1/100 degree horizontal resolution. The flow is forced by six-hourly Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) surface winds and heat fluxes. Cyclic boundary conditions south of the Yucatan Channel and in the Florida Straits are provided by a synoptically-forced 1/12 degree Atlantic HYCOM configured for much of the Atlantic Ocean, from 30S to 70N. The results from this larger domain simulation are obtained for years 1999-2002 and binned into monthly values to create a perpetual forcing and boundary conditions for the Gulf of Mexico inner domain. Rivers are represented by point sources forced towards monthly climatological freshwater inflows taken from the USGS. Further details of the model configuration can be found in Prasad and Hogan (2007). The k-Profile parameterization (KPP; Large et al., 1994) is used to invoke vertical mixing. This is a special run at 1 km for January 1-11 2014 and July 1-11 2014. Files are calculated mean surface velocities for an expanding window for every 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24 hours which repeats for every day represented by the variable tau in the NetCDF files. NetCDF files naming convention indicates the start and end date in the file names. This dataset supports the publication: Drouin, K. L., Mariano, A. J., Ryan, E. H., & Laurindo, L. C. (2019). Lagrangian simulation of oil trajectories in the Florida Straits. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 140, 204–218. doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.01.031