Lake Superior OFS

Last cycle 12 Oct 18:00 UTC

lsofs

Lake Superior unstructured forecast: temperature, currents, ice and lake level on an FVCOM mesh spanning the largest Great Lake.

Model FVCOMGrid UGRID (unstructured)Region Great LakesExtent −92.0938, 46.4109 → −84.3563, 49.0156

Produced by NOAA NOS CO-OPS

Coverage

Jul 28 – Oct 17

Cadence

Forecast

120h

Variables

Grid

UGRID

Vertical

20σ-layers

Coveragetime

span 2.7 months39 h ahead

now

Jul 28, 2026 12:59ZOct 17, 2026 18:00Z

Access

ZarrAvailable

Zarr store on S3 — open directly for best performance.

s3://noaa-nodd-kerchunk-pds/zarr3/lsofs.zarr

WMSAvailable

Rendered map tiles for Leaflet, OpenLayers, QGIS.

https://cloud.data.ioos.us/xreds/datasets/lsofs_zarr3/wms/?service=WMS&request=GetCapabilities

Open in code

python

import xarray as xr

ds = xr.open_zarr(
    "s3://noaa-nodd-kerchunk-pds/zarr3/lsofs.zarr",
    zarr_format=3,
    consolidated=False,
    storage_options={"anon": True},
)

Lake Superior OFS · Zarr v3, anonymous S3

import intake

cat = intake.open_catalog(
    "https://noaa-nodd-kerchunk-pds.s3.amazonaws.com/zarr3/intake.yml",
)
ds = cat["lsofs"].to_dask()

Lake Superior OFS · resolved through the shared catalog

Dimensions9

four4nele174,015node90,964three3time1,779siglev-1 → 0maxnode11maxelem9siglay-1 → 0

Variables57

name	standard name	units	dimensions
temp	sea_water_temperature	degrees_C	timesiglaynode
salinity	sea_water_salinity	1e-3	timesiglaynode
u	eastward_sea_water_velocity	meters s-1	timesiglaynele
v	Northward_sea_water_velocity	meters s-1	timesiglaynele
ww	not declared	meters s-1	timesiglaynele
zeta	sea_surface_height_above_geoid	meters	timenode
uwind_speed	eastward wind	meters s-1	timenele
vwind_speed	northward wind	meters s-1	timenele
atmos_press	not declared	pascals	timenode
aice	ice_area_category	—	timenode
vice	ice_volume_category	m	timenode
uuice	not declared	meters s-1	timenele
vvice	not declared	meters s-1	timenele
tsfc	ice_surface_temperature	deg C	timenode
a2u	not declared	—	fournele
art2	not declared	—	node
awx	not declared	—	threenele
Times	not declared	—	time
aw0	not declared	—	threenele
a1u	not declared	—	fournele
awy	not declared	—	threenele
art1	not declared	—	node
iint	not declared	—	time
kq	not declared	m 2 s-1	timesiglevnode
km	not declared	m 2 s-1	timesiglevnode
l	not declared	m3 s-2	timesiglevnode
kh	not declared	m 2 s-1	timesiglevnode
latent_heat_flux	not declared	W m-2	timenode
h	sea_floor_depth_below_geoid	m	node
inundation_cells	not declared	—	timenele
ntsn	not declared	—	node
net_heat_flux	not declared	W m-2	timenode
nprocs	not declared	—
nbe	not declared	—	threenele
nbsn	not declared	—	maxnodenode
nbve	not declared	—	maxelemnode
long_wave	not declared	W m-2	timenode
ntve	not declared	—	node
nv	not declared	—	threenele
q2l	not declared	m3 s-2	timesiglevnode
sensible_heat_flux	not declared	W m-2	timenode
omega	not declared	s-1	timesiglevnode
partition	not declared	—	nele
q2	not declared	m2 s-2	timesiglevnode
short_wave	not declared	W m-2	timenode
tauc	not declared	m^2 s^-2	timenele
viscofm	not declared	m 2 s-1	timesiglaynele
viscofh	not declared	m 2 s-1	timesiglaynode
wet_cells	not declared	—	timenele
wet_nodes_prev_int	not declared	—	timenode
wet_cells_prev_int	not declared	—	timenele
x	not declared	meters	node
wet_nodes	not declared	—	timenode
wet_cells_prev_ext	not declared	—	timenele
xc	not declared	meters	nele
y	not declared	meters	node
yc	not declared	meters	nele

Attributes16

title

LSOFS

institution

School for Marine Science and Technology

source

FVCOM_4.4.7

history

model started at: 15/10/2026 20:11

references

http://fvcom.smast.umassd.edu, https://github.com/FVCOM-GitHub/FVCOM

Conventions

CF-1.0

CoordinateSystem

GeoReferenced

CoordinateProjection

proj=utm +zone=16 +datum=NAD83

Tidal_Forcing

TIDAL ELEVATION FORCING IS EITHER IN NESTING OR OFF!

River_Forcing

THERE ARE 20 RIVERS IN THIS MODEL. RIVER INFLOW IS ON THE edges WHERE TEMPERATURE AND SALINITY ARE specified IN THE MODEL. THE FOLLOWING RIVER NAMES ARE USED: 04024000 04024000 04027000 04040000 02AB006 02AB006 02AB006 02AC002 02AD012 02AD012 02AD012 02BB003 04127885 04127885 04127885 04127885 04127885 04127885 04127885 04127885

GroundWater_Forcing

GROUND WATER FORCING IS OFF!

Surface_Heat_Forcing

FVCOM variable surface heat forcing file: FILE NAME:lsofs.t18z.20261015.hflux.forecast.nc SOURCE:FVCOM grid (unstructured) surface forcing Unknown start date meta data format

Surface_Wind_Forcing

FVCOM variable surface Wind forcing: FILE NAME:lsofs.t18z.20261015.met.forecast.nc SOURCE:FVCOM grid (unstructured) surface forcing Unknown start date meta data format

Surface_PrecipEvap_Forcing

FVCOM periodic surface precip forcing: FILE NAME:lsofs.t18z.20261015.met.forecast.nc SOURCE:FVCOM grid (unstructured) surface forcing Unknown start date meta data format

Ice_Model_Forcing

FVCOM variable surface ice model forcing: FILE NAME:lsofs.t18z.20261015.met.forecast.nc SOURCE:FVCOM grid (unstructured) surface forcing Unknown start date meta data format

_xpublish_id

lsofs_zarr3

Source & extent

Model core

FVCOM

Grid type

UGRID (unstructured)

Region

Great Lakes

Spatial extent

−92.0938, 46.4109 → −84.3563, 49.0156

Store format

Zarr v3

Source store

s3://noaa-nodd-kerchunk-pds/zarr3/lsofs.zarr