The Carolinas’ Coast Marine Web Portal,
a new experimental website that integrates real-time marine data from eight major providers will be launched by NOAA’s National Weather Service in Wilmington, N.C., Morehead City, N.C., Charleston, S.C., NOAA’s Ocean Prediction Center, University of South Carolina and University of North Carolina at Wilmington’s Center for Marine Science, on April 2, 2007.
This new marine web portal will be a gateway for marine customers and partners to access a variety of real-time marine observations, hazards and forecasts along the Carolina coastline all at one site integrating real-time data from eight major providers. The site current integrates data from the following providers: National Weather Service (NWS); National Ocean Service; National Data Buoy Center; Coastal Ocean Research Monitoring Program; Carolina’s Coastal Ocean Observing and Prediction System Stations, that are owned and operated by the University of South Carolina and North Carolina State University; United State Geological Survey, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Defense, and The Skidaway Institute of Oceanography.
“At the National Weather Service we are always striving to provide our customers and partners with the most innovative and useful water, weather and climate information to help save lives and property,” said NOAA’s NWS John Guiney, chief, Meteorological Services. “The Carolinas’ Coast Marine Web Portal provides our customers with one-site to easily obtain all the marine data they need to safely chart their course along the Carolina coastline,” he continued.
The Carolinas’ Coast Marine Web Portal is an experimental product to test new methods in delivering both NOAA source data and data from partners in a web application that integrates both meteorological and geographic information. Funding affiliates for this project were the Southeast Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System, Southeast Costal Ocean Observing Regional Association, and South Carolina Sea Grant. “We are really excited about this integrative approach that provides mariners everything they might need for safe passage all at one site. We are inviting our customers and partners to view the portal and provide their comments by September 30, 2007. This will allow us to evaluate this product and its future development to best meet needs of the mariner community,” said NOAA’s NWS Michael Caropolo, meteorologist-in-charge, Wilmington, North Carolina. Carolinas’ Coast Marine Web Portal provides access to current observations, land and sea surface temperatures, official NWS five day forecasts and warnings, radar data, wind speeds and directions, wind gusts, air pressure and coastal bathymetry for a distance of 250 nautical miles from the Carolina coastline. Web users will easily find the right transmission frequency for NOAA’s All-Hazard Weather Radio anywhere along the coast of the Carolinas. All data is available in text and graphical formats and different datasets may be overlaid on the geographic map providing a comprehensive view of the weather.
