Development Page--Not for Official Use

MesoETA Forecasts

ANN models were tested with exact wind and tidal forecasts as input sets. In addition, the ANN models were trained to compute their outputs using these exact forecast inputs. The National Weather Service (NWS) provided wind forecasts derived from the comparison of output from several models. The Meso-ETA model was selected because it provided the range of forecast needed for the ANN models with the proper geographic resolution. This model is called Meso-Eta model from NCEP [17]. Although wind predictions of 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54 and 60 hours were provided, the longest ANN prediction time is 48 hours and just the past winds influence the water levels so the 54 and 60 hour forecasts were not applied to the ANN models. The use of Meso-Eta forecasts will also allow for other modeling possibilities. In this work and in the previous works [3], only the wind forecast at the station of interest was used. As the Meso-Eta model gives forecasts for Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, future models will be able to use a wider geographic range of forecasts. Including wind forecasts at several locations and in particular in the Gulf of Mexico itself should lead to models that have a more direct link between the forcing functions and the changes in water levels.

Return to NN Water Level Forecasting Home