Real-Time and Probabilistic Forecasting System for Waves and Surge in Tropical Cyclones

Understanding the elements associated with hurricanes that cause damage and loss of life is of great interest to scientists, public and private decision makers and the general public. We also wish to improve our understanding of the causes of and contributors to those elements. We present the latest stage of progress of our NOPP project, Real-Time Forecasting System of Winds, Waves, and Surge in Tropical Cyclones, which is now in its 5th year of development. Optimizations include running the system in parallel to decrease runtime. This increased efficiency allows for multiple storm tracks to be run and opens the door for a probabilistic approach to forecasting surge levels. The estimation of tropical cyclone-generated waves and surge in the coastal waters and nearshore zone is of critical importance to the timely evacuation of coastal residents, and the assessment of damage to coastal property in the event that a storm makes landfall. The model predictions of waves and storm surge in coastal waters are functionally related and both depend on the reliability of the atmospheric forcing. Given wind speed and pressure we force a deep water wave model (WAM), which in turn provides the boundary conditions for a coastal scale wave model (SWAN). These wave fields are used in combination with the wind and pressure data to force a circulation model, ADCIRC, that predicts the ocean surface response to the combined forcing.