About NOS: NOAA Weather and Water Goal

To serve society’s needs for weather and water information.

This page summarizes NOS involvement in NOAA's Coasts, Estuaries, and Oceans Program, which directly supports the Weather and Water Mission Goal.

Coasts, Estuaries, and Oceans Program

Coastal and ocean observations and predictions allow us to plan for and respond to hazardous weather, water, and related environmental events. These activities are important in protecting our nation’s economic, social, and ecological health. NOAA’s Coasts, Estuaries, and Oceans (CEO) Program provides resource and emergency managers, decision makers, and the public with access to more comprehensive, accurate, timely, and accessible weather and water information and services to plan, make sound decisions, and respond effectively.

Water Level Station at Gray Gables, MA. The station, part of NOS’s National Water Level Observation Program, includes a data collection platform, acoustic sensor with a protective tube, satellite antenna, various meteorological sensors and solar panel to keep the station battery charged.

Under this program, NOS activities such as data collection and integration, contribute to the development of an Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) and Coastal Global Ocean Observing System (C-GOOS). For example, NOS’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services operates the National Water Level Observation Network, to provide tide and water level data as part of the C-GOOS. The Coastal Services Center coordinates the Coastal Observation Technology System to ensure that NOAA data sent to IOOS meet data standards.

Also through CEO, NOS works with NOAA’s National Weather Service and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service to provide observational data such as tide and wind data, to help management agencies to monitor and mitigate the impact of natural hazards and environmental stressors on coastal and marine ecosystems.

Through the Coastal Storms project, CEO is evaluating storm-surge models for application in storm planning, mitigation, and response activities and to increase storm-surge forecast accuracy. Activities such as these provide information to ocean and coastal managers, to help them to make decisions that reduce loss of life, injury, and damage to the economy and our environment.

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