The Real Time Ocean Forecast System (RTOFS) for the North Atlantic is an ocean forecast system based on the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM). HYCOM is the result of a collaborative effort between the University of Miami, the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), as part of a multi-institutional HYCOM Consortium for Data-Assimilative Ocean Modeling funded by the National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP) to develop and evaluate a data-assimilative hybrid isopycnal-sigma-pressure (generalized) coordinate ocean model. This paper describes the RTOFS-Atlantic, an operational real time ocean nowcast/forecast system for the North Atlantic running daily at National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP).