A new coastal flood forecasting system for the Netherlands

The North Sea is one of the busiest seas in the world with dense ship traffic, fisheries, wind farming, recreation and many other activities. All these activities depend on the ‘marine weather’. Accurate forecasts of waves, currents and sea level are crucial for operational management and for issuing warnings during extreme events. The current operational forecasting system in the Netherlands has been operational since the 90’s. Over the last few years, a new generation forecasting system for the North Sea and the Dutch Seacoastal waters has been developed. This involved both advanced model development as well as the set-up of an operational forecasting shell based on the FEWS (Flood Early Warning System) framework. From the start of the storm season on September 1st 2012, this new system will be used pre-operationally by Rijkswaterstaat (Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment) and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, KNMI. This paper gives an overview of the many developments that are needed for an accurate and reliable forecasting system. In addition to accurate and robust numerical models, one needs scheduling with backup options, quality control of observations, good interactive displays of many datasets, manual override for operators, and much more. The quality of the operational forecasts is as strong as the weakest link.