HYCOM - DATA SERVER: GOFS 3.1

[Victor Duraes De Faria]

Hi, I would like to know if the Hycom GOFS 3.1 simulations do consider the influence of hurricanes in the ocean current velocities. 

For example, in October/2005 hurricane Wilma hit the East coast of the US, would I be able so see the influence of this hurricane in the gulf stream currents or I need to input more data into HYCOM to get this type of influence?

[Alan Wallcraft]

Yes, hurricanes are included but are limited by the atmospheric forcing.  For the GOFS 3.1 analysis, the atmosphere is from a real-time nowcasting and forecasting product (NAVGEM), which may have the hurricane on the wrong track (e.g. the time of landfall may be wrong) and often has a weak representation of the storm.  The Reanalysis has CFSR (v1 or v2) atmospheric forcing, which is itself a reanslysis and is also available hourly (vs 3hrly for NAVGEM), so it might have a better representation of hurricanes - although likely still not entirely correct.  Generally, the best modeling of the effect of hurricanes on the ocean are done after the fact using a very high resolution atmosphere and sometimes with an idealized hurricane that fits the characteristics of the real hurricane better than can be done using actual observations of the atmosphere.

See https://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycomcice1-12/glfmex.html for recent hurricanes (2014 to present) in the Gulf of Mexico.  I attach plots from Hurricane Ida, which show the progress of the storm from south of Cuba to the coast of Louisiana.  Recent storms should also be detectable for the Gulf Stream region.

Alan.

[Victor Duraes De Faria]

Thank you, Alan. Very informative !