The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), specifically the National Weather Service's (NWS) National Hurricane Center (NHC), utilizes the hydrodynamic Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes ( SLOSH) model to simulate storm surge from tropical cyclones. Storm surge information is provided to federal, state, and local partners to assist in a range of planning processes, risk assessment studies, and operational decision-making. In regards to the former, tens of thousands of climatology-based hypothetical tropical cyclones are simulated in each SLOSH basin (or grid), and the potential storm surges are calculated. Storm surge composites – Maximum Envelopes of Water (MEOWs) and Maximum of MEOWs (MOMs) – are created to assess and visualize storm surge risk under varying conditions. While MEOWs and MOMs provide a local assessment of storm surge risk, they do not provide a seamless perspective of the hazard owing to the many discrete SLOSH grids. This section briefly describes the scientific techniques used to create the seamless inundation maps for Category 1-5 hurricanes using the SLOSH MOM product as well as a description of the datasets and map viewer available to the public.
Storm surge hazard maps are available for Texas to Maine, Puerto Rico, USVI, Hawaii, and Hispaniola. The data are available in GeoTIFF ( http://trac.osgeo.org/geotiff/) format for use in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. Comprehensive metadata are provided with each GIS file describing the data and its limitations. Storm surge inundation datasets are created using the high tide scenario SLOSH MOM products for all regions. Each dataset contains an ESRI World File (.tfw) and metadata .xml file. These GeoTIFFs are 8-bit unsigned integer raster datasets that correspond to 1 ft inundation bins (e.g., Class Value 1 corresponds to the 0-1 ft inundation bin, Class Value 2 corresponds to the 1-2 ft inundation bin, and so on). The maximum Class Value is 21, and inundation in excess of 20 ft is assigned a Class Value of 21. A Class Value of 99 is assigned to leveed areas. A more detailed description of the data can be found in the associated metadata.
Preferred Data Citation. The first version of the SLOSH storm surge hazard maps, released in November 2014, was published in the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Journal of Weather, Climate and Society, titled "A National View of Storm Surge Risk and Inundation". The publication is available online at ...
This national depiction of storm surge flooding vulnerability helps people living in hurricane-prone coastal areas along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI), Hawaii, and Hispaniola to evaluate their risk to the storm surge hazard. These maps make it clear that storm surge is not just a beachfront problem, ...
The maps show that all coastal states from Texas to Maine, as well as the island of Puerto Rico, USVI, Hawaii, and Hispaniola are vulnerable to storm surge inundation, and the risk significantly increases with increasing hurricane category.
Large bays, tidal rivers, etc. are extremely vulnerable to storm surge flooding. These data and this approach taken to inform the public of storm surge risk are valuable to federal, state, and local NOAA partners, academic, private, and other various organizations.
The proposed system would consist of one barrier located across the mouth of Lower New York Bay between Sandy Hook (N.J.) and Rockaway (N.Y.) and second on the upper East River to provide a ring ...
Similar, albeit more modestly-sized, but still highly effective storm-surge barriers have been in operation for nearly half a century in three New England communities — the Stamford Hurricane Protection Barrier in Stamford, Conn.; the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier in Providence, R.I.; and the New Bedford Harbor Hurricane Barrier in New Bedford, Mass. Hours before Hurricane Sandy struck Stamford, the city's 17-foot-high movable barrier was closed to withstand an over-11-foot storm tide which struck western Long Island Sound (at some locations on the sound, the storm tide was even higher than the 11.5-foot storm tide measured at The Battery in New York City), devastating every waterfront community on the northwestern coast of the sound — except Stamford.
New storm-surge barriers on Lake Borgne and Lake Pontchartrain are part of the protection for New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The famous Thames Barrier is typically deployed up ...
Over 99% of the time, floodgates would remain open so as to minimally hinder tides, harbor flushing, river discharge, fish migration and healthy marine ecosystem functioning. An environmental impact study would evaluate whether any hindrance posed by the structure is outweighed by its benefit.
At about the same time, the American Society of Civil Engineers organized a three-day conference and subsequently published a report entitled "Storm-Surge Barriers to Protect New York City Against the Deluge.".
Harbor-wide barriers would require a design, approval and construction process that could take two to three decades to complete. The possible hydrodynamic and environmental impacts on fish migration, siltation, river flow, and water quality are likely to be substantial and are not yet known.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has conducted coastal storm risk reduction studies and beach restoration and resiliency projects.
High tide and storm surge — the pile of water that built up in front of Sandy as she moved up the coast — combined to bury lower Manhattan under 13 feet of water.
Instead of storm surge barriers or gates, he suggested that New York and New Jersey could follow Boston’s lead and focus on restoring marshes and building green infrastructure, elevated parks, and other floodable architectures that can soak up water. “The water will come,” said Gallay.
Suzanne DiGeronimo, a member of the New York/New Jersey Metropolitan Storm Surge Working Group, supports building storm surge gates from Sandy Hook, NJ to Jamaica Bay, as well as in the East River, East Rockaway, and Jones Inlet. During her presentation, she gave examples of other cities that have built similar structures, including London, ...
In fact, the Army Corps is interested in hearing from community members — Jones said that the comments, concerns, and suggestions for alternatives would be considered and factored into the study. While the debate over whether or not to build storm surge barriers in New York and New Jersey could easily last another seven years, ...