Across NOAA, groups have developed increasingly accurate model representations of different components of the earth system (e.g., ice, streamflow, snow, lakes, coastal water, oceans, atmosphere, land/vegetation, etc.). From the atmospheric modeling side of the broad NOAA family, increased cross-component coupling has been designed and implemented to better represent fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum across these interfaces. These improvements are necessary for improved forecasts for aviation, severe weather, hydrology, and energy applications. One example of this is the NOAA operational 3-km High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) atmospheric earth-system forecast model and upcoming versions from the NOAA Unified Forecast System (UFS), now including loose coupling to NOAA 3D hydrodynamic forecast models (FVCOM) for the Great Lakes and direct coupling for smaller inland lakes. These lake-atmosphere links leading to improvements of near-surface atmospheric forecasts will be described in the talk. Ongoing work and results will also be described using improved lake bathymetry representations for inland lakes. Other couplings will also be described, including use of HRRR precipitation forecasts to drive the NOAA National Water Model for the first 24-48h. Potential for further coupling between coastal FVCOM and HRRR/UFS will also be described.