Our South African Coastal Ocean Forecast System (SACOFS) provides predictions of the ocean state using specifically designed configurations of the Coastal and Regional Ocean COmmunity model ( CROCO ). The system focuses on high-priority regions along South Africa’s coast, where ocean forecasts are needed most. Our models provide operational forecasts at high spatial resolution (< 1 km at the coast) for two domains: • SACOFS-west & SACOFS-southeast Open boundary conditions for our models are obtained from two ~9 km resolution global ocean analysis and forecast products: MERCATOR and HYCOM . Our models effectively represent a ‘downscaling’ of these global models to high resolution at the coast. Surface forcing for our models is obtained from both the ~25 km resolution Global Forecast System (GFS) Model and a ~4 km resolution atmospheric forecast model run operationally by the South African Weather Service (SAWS). The use of two different boundary forcing products and two different surface forcing products allows us to provide a four-member ensemble of forecasts for each of our domains. The ensemble members are named according to the BOUNDARY-SURFACE forcing combination:

MERCATOR-GFS, MERCATOR-SAWS, HYCOM-GFS, HYCOM-SAWS

Each of the ensemble members are additionally forced with tides from TPXO10 . Each ensemble member is initialized once a day, producing output throughout the water column at an hourly temporal resolution for a period of 5 days into the past to 5 days into the future. The SAWS-forced simulations are however limited to a 2.5-day forecast due to the limited temporal availability of the forcing. The provided output variables are seawater temperature, salinity, sea surface height, and currents.

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