The Ocean Prediction Center (OPC) is a part of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) located at the NOAA Science Center in Camp Springs, MD. The OPC is operational 24hours per day, 7 days per week. The staff consists of about 20 meteorologists along with small technical development and administrative branches. The primary responsibility of the OPC is the issuance of marine warnings, forecasts, and guidance in text and graphical format for maritime users for the of protection of life and property, safety at sea, and the enhancement of economic opportunity These products cover the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans on three scales: high seas, regional and offshore and are prepared and disseminated on a fixed, recurring schedule. The OPC also quality controls marine observations globally from ship, buoy, and automated marine observations for gross errors prior to being assimilated into computer model guidance.

Until recently, the main sources of surface wind observations over the oceans have been ship reports through the VOS Program and data buoys. Ship observations are extremely useful to forecasters but are limited in number. The current network of data buoys is nowhere near optimal density - therefore a substantial data void has remained over the oceans. The instruments on QuikSCAT can acquire thousands of times more observations of surface wind speed and direction each day than can ships and buoys combined. By providing continuous, high-resolution measurements of both wind speed and direction, regardless of weather conditions, QuikSCAT has been able to fill in much of the data void over the oceans.

The OPC forecasters use the National Centers - Advanced Weather Interactive Processing Systems (N-AWIPS) workstations to view and generate OPC graphical and text products. These workstations are also used to view model output and satellite and observational data. To prepare their analyses and forecasts the OPC forecasters look at the observational data from satellites, ships, buoys and other NCEP surface analyses . When QuikSCAT data was made available to OPC Forecasters on the N–AWIPS workstations in October 2001 they were able to obtain near real-time observations of surface wind speed and direction over much of their forecast areas. QuikSCAT winds have proven invaluable in locating centers of high and low pressure, frontal systems and areas of gale force (and stronger )winds. Forecasters quickly realized that this enabled them to get a better handle on their analyses. They were also able to more confidently issue, raise or lower gale, storm, and hurricane force wind warnings. Preliminary studies indicate that using QuikSCAT winds in the forecast process has a significant and positive effect on the amount and type of warnings issued by the OPC forecasters. Currently OPC is in the process of quantitatively evaluating the influence of QuikSCAT winds in the verification of issued warnings.