Storm Surge Basins

To predict localized storm surges, coastal areas along the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean are divided into small, distinct surge basins, each represented by a closed region containing the grid points for which surge data are computed (the shapes outlined in red, below). A few examples of surge basins include Lake Ponchartrain (New Orleans), Galveston Bay, Mobile Bay, Tampa Bay, Miami, Savannah/Hilton Head, Charleston Harbor, Chesapeake Bay, New York/Long Island Sound, and Boston Harbor. Storm surge models are run for each basin separately.

Meteorological factors affecting surge heights are the inputs to the model: these include numerical values for a hypothetical storm's maximum sustained winds, central pressure, direction of approach, forward speed, and others. The topographical (land features) and bathymetric (water depth) data for a given surge basin, although changing, are doing so on much longer time scales than is the storm itself, so those data will remain the same between model runs.

The model simulates storm impacts and facilitates prediction of maximum surge heights possible for various onshore locations well before a real storm is on its way, using data from hypothetical and historical storms as its input. The values of the meteorological variables are changed from one simulation to the next so that a wide variety of hurricane impact scenarios on a given surge basin may be taken into account. This helps emergency managers prepare evacuation strategies that can then be set into motion immediately as soon as a real hurricane is seen coming their way.

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