1. RDFS Rapid Deployment Forecast System Visit at: http://rdfs.stccmop.org Registration required

2. 2 RDFS – Currently 22 forecasts 24/7

3. 3 RDFS - Goals Generate operational forecast of sufficient quality providing results within 24 hours of receipt of a computational grid Foster a community of interested parties empowered to maintain and improve each forecast

4. 4 RDFS – Infrastructure File/web server central RDFS host Compute server The central RDFS host is a repository for model results and a provider of some model inputs such as atmospheric forecasts. Products both static and dynamic are delivered via a locally hosted web server. Compute servers execute one or more forecasts. Presently RDFS has 9 multi-CPU compute servers. Generally, one CPU is dedicated for each forecast.

5. 5 RDFS - Grids Grid Generation –Requires bathymetry –Imagery, coastal outlines –Requirements, particular features represented in the domain –Determine open, land boundaries –Grid creation using SMS, ACE/gredit, or other provider, e.g. use of an existing grid

6. 6 RDFS – Boundary Conditions Open boundary conditions –Ocean Tidal model for elevation BCs Regional model forcings for flux, salinity, temperature, elevations Fresh water inputs –Streams, rivers »Real time data source – e.g. USGS stream flow network »climatology for river flux and temperature so always have data for inputs.

7. 7 RDFS – Atmospheric forcings Atmospheric forecasts –NCEP North American Mesoscale (NAM) 3 day forecast 12km grid resolution Use for most coastal US forecasts –NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS) 10 day forecast 75km resolution but covers the entire globe. Both forecast are downloaded daily and converted to file formats understood by the models

8. 8 RDFS - Models ELCIRC –3D baroclinic circulation across river-to- ocean scales implemented using a finite-volume/finite-difference Eulerian- Lagrangian algorithm SELFE –(Semi-implicit Eulerian-Lagrangian Finite Elements) a 3D baroclinic circulation model.

9. 9 RDFS - Execution Execution of daily forecast –Crontab entries on compute nodes for each forecast Simlink.pl –Creates directory structure for the day’s forecast Prep.pl –Gathers inputs for the model run Check.pl –Verifies inputs are correct Start.pl –Executes forecast

10. 10 RDFS – Monitoring and alerting 24/7 on a budget Systems monitored by Big Brother, disk free, CPU state, uptime E-mail alerts on success or failure Critical fault alerts passed to pagers carried by forecast team members

11. 11 RDFS – Pre-generated Products Processing and product generation –Master_process.pl Runs as a daemon on compute nodes In a loop executes scripts to: –Extract model data at stations –Extract realtime data from a relational database store –Create model and model/data comparison plots at stations –Create isoline plots of variables over the domain

12. 12 RDFS – Pre-generated Products Model/data comparisons Isolines Transects Many other types

13. 13 RDFS - Mapserver Mapserver –Web application for rendering spatial data home at http://ms.gis.umn.edu/ –Model output data for each forecast can be viewed with the RDFS mapserver deployment –Additional layers from navigation charts, USGS topo maps, USGS ortho-photos, shapefiles –Can generate animations

14. 14 RDFS - Mapserver

15. 15 RDFS - Drupal Drupal is an open source web site content management system used as an application framework in support of RDFS. –http://www.drupal.org –Provides user management functions –Menus, forums, blogs and other useful content types

16. 16 RDFS - Drupal

17. 17 RDFS – Going Forward Upcoming parallel version of SELFE changes infrastructure –Computes nodes become compute cluster –Larger domains possible –Smaller time steps possible –Need more disk to store results Challenges building a community of interested parties