Lake Erie Operational Forecast System (LEOFS)

Effective on May 20, 2020 beginning at 18z Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), two major changes for NOS OFS datasets on THREDDS will be implemented. Please see the Service Change Notice for details

https://www.weather.gov/media/notification/scn20-43nos_ofs.pdf

1. Retention period change - Only the most recent 31 days of OFS output files will be available on CO-OPS THREDDS.

2. File structure changes - To improve THREDDS performance related to file access and data aggregation

(Please click on the map pins below to access the time series plots)

Water Level	Wind	Water Temperature	Currents
(Please click on the categories below to access animated map plots)
Nowcast	Nowcast	Nowcast	Nowcast
Forecast Guidance	Forecast Guidance	Forecast Guidance	Forecast Guidance

The upgraded Lake Erie Operational Forecast System (LEOFS) was jointly developed by NOAA/National Ocean Service's (NOS) Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) and Office of Coast Survey (OCS), the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL), the NOAA/National Weather Service's (NWS) National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) National Central Operations (NCO), and the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

The NWS and NOS work together to run LEOFS operationally on NOAA's High Performance Computing System (HPCS). By running on NOAA's HPCS, LEOFS has direct access to National Weather Service operational meteorological products that are required for reliable operations.

LEOFS uses the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM). LEOFS provides users with nowcast (analyses of near present) and forecast guidance of water levels, currents and water temperature out to 120 hours, four times per day.

For more information about LEOFS, please click here.

For more information about FVCOM, please click here.

Disclaimer
The Lake Erie Operational Forecast System (LEOFS) has been implemented by NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) to provide the maritime user community with short-term predictions of water levels, water currents, and water temperatures of the Lake Erie. LEOFS uses a numerical hydrodynamic model to generate the nowcast and forecast information; therefore, they should be considered as model-generated nowcast and forecast guidance. For more detailed information related to the OFS disclaimer, please visit at the Disclaimers web page.