The Extratropical Surge and Tide Operational Forecast System for the Pacific (ESTOFS Pacific) provides users with nowcast (analyses of near present conditions) and forecast guidance of water level conditions for the Pacific coast. The forecast outputs include water levels caused by the combined effects of storm surge and tides, by astronomical tides alone, and by sub-tidal water levels (isolated storm surge) out to 180 hours. The hydrodynamic model employed by ESTOFS is the ADvanced CIRCulation (ADCIRC) finite element model. The unstructured grid used by ESTOFS Pacific consists of 132,630 nodes and 256,314 triangular elements. Coastal resolution generally ranges from 1 to 3 km. The open-ocean boundary stretches from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, south of Hawaii, and to Baja California. Harmonic tidal constituents from the global tidal model TPXO8-Atlas are used to specify tidal water surface fluctuations at the open ocean boundary, while tidal potential forcing is applied within the interior of the domain. ESTOFS output files are provided in two formats: structured GRIB2 grid files for the contiguous U.S. (2.5 km resolution), Alaska (6 km resolution), and Hawaii (2.5 km resolution), and unstructured NetCDF files on the native ESTOFS finite element grid. NetCDF output is also provided at observation station locations. The GRIB2 files provide predictions during each forecast cycle, consisting of hourly records of combined water level (surge with tide), harmonic tidal prediction (astronomical tides), and sub-tidal water levels (the isolated surge). NetCDF files contain an entire run cycle, and consist of the hourly combined water level over the native ESTOFS grid and six-minute combined water level records at observation station locations.

ESTOFS web page:
Storm Surge