NOAA’s Advances in Storm Surge Modeling & Prediction

NOAA’s Advances in Storm Surge Modeling & Prediction

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

Jason P. Tuell, Ph.DNational Weather Service Eastern Region

DirectorNorth Atlantic Regional Team

Team Lead

1

February 25-26, 2014

HSRP Public Meeting

2

Outline

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

• Sandy Supplemental Augmentation• Storm Surge Forecasting & Enhancements• Near Shore Wave Prediction System• Extra Tropical Storm Surge Advancements• Wave Run Up Studies• Training and Outreach

Sandy SupplementalCongress provides ~$97 million to improve

forecast services

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods” 3

• Computer Upgrades• Observations• Models

• Physical Science Research• Social Science Research• Improved Surge Forecast

Designed to Improve:

Response -- Resilience/Recovery -- Preparedness

4

• Run NWS Global Forecast Systems at higher resolution (13km) out 10 days

• High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) 3 kilometer resolution Runs every hour

• Ensembles: Higher Resolutions Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) (going from 55km to 35 km) Short Range Ensemble Forecast (SREF) (going from 16 km to 12 km)

• Hurricane Models (to be run at 3km)

• Accelerate Storm Surge Modeling for NY, NJ, and New England

Sandy Supplemental

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

NOAA’s Model Production Suite

5

6

• Enables Storm Surge Modeling Upgrades P-Surge, ETSS, ESTOF(s) New Ensemble Models-Probabilistic ETSS Nearshore Wave Prediction System

• Accelerates Flood Inundation Graphics

• Enables New Tropical Training & Outreach Storm Surge Training: Internal & External Tropical Professional Development Series Effective Tropical Messaging Training Effective Outreach Videos & Fact Sheets

Benefits of Sandy Supplemental

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

7

P-Surge – Probabilistic Approach

Probabilistic approach using P-Surge system based on SLOSH

Total water depth from P-Surge surge levels (20% exceeedance) and ESTOFS tides

Forecast guidance produced using NWPS (SWAN) 7

8

Probabilistic Storm Surge with Tide

9

“Storm Surge is often the greatest threat to lives & property from hurricane”

Potential Storm Surge Flood Maps

10

Nearshore Wave Prediction System

• WAVEWATCH III• SWAN• RTOFS• ESTOFS

11

Extra-Tropical Future Work

In addition to advances in tropical surge forecasting, NOAA continues its work enhancing extra tropical storm surge forecasting.

•ESTOFS•Ensemble system•ETSS 2.0 overland•PETSS

12

Wave Run-Up Initiative: 1st tested during “Sandy” Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, October 2012

Correctly forecasted

erosion and overwash

Nearshore Waves ~ 31 ft

13

Training and Outreach

• Coastal Storm Awareness Program (CSAP)

• Develop comprehensive training program for NWS Partners on strengths & weaknesses of P-surge vs SLOSH MEOWS & single track SLOSH runs

• Interactive distance learning module for External Partners in FY14

• Tropical Professional Development Series (PDS) addresses performance gaps related to tropical cyclone operations

14

Clarifying Water Levels & Datums

NOS working with NHC to alleviate confusion regarding tidal datums Inundation occurs when storm tide

levels reach normally dry ground, and NHC forecasts describe flooding above ground

Mean Higher High Water (MHHW) is being used to approximate where inundation could begin

Storm Quicklook and NOS web services include water level data relative to MHHW

http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/datum_options.html

15

Summary

Sandy Supplemental enabling NOAA to make significant improvements is surge forecastingNOAA team effort combining OAR research, NOS and

NWS data and models

Inundation forecasts coming soon

Integrated tropical and extra-tropical surge forecasts longer term goal

16

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

Additional Slides

17B

Sandy Supplemental

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

NOAA Operational Computing Capacity

18B

GFS Evolution To 2018

19

The High-Resolution Rapid Refresh

(HRRR)

7B

20B

GEFS Evolution To 2018

21B

Mesoscale

22B

• Developing a collaborative process between NHC & WFO(s) to begin issuing experimental tropical cyclone storm surge watches & warnings in 2015

• Future work: Expand to include extra-tropical storms

Storm Surge Watch/Warning

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

23B

New Outreach Fact Sheets

2428B

25B

Weather-Ready Nation: Hurricanes

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

Credits:•Jim Edds – extremestorms.com

•NOAA National Ocean Service

•NOAA National Weather Service

•NOAA Coastal Services Center

•NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

26B

Clarifying Water Levels & Datum

27B

Weather-Ready Nation Strategic Goals

Strategic Outcome:Weather-Ready Nation

• Ready

• Responsive

• Resilient

NWS Strategic Goals

• Improve Weather Decisions Services

• Improve Water Forecasting Services

• Enhance climate services and adapt climate-related risks

• Improve sector-relevant information in support of economic productivity

• Enable environmental forecast services supporting healthy communities and ecosystems

• Sustain a highly skilled, professional workforce equipped with training, tools, & infrastructure to meet mission

Prediction is what makes us unique!

28B

“Working to achieve far-reaching national preparedness for weather events

A Weather-Ready Nation

Becoming a Weather-Ready Nation is about building community resiliency in the face of increasing vulnerability to extreme weather.

Impact-based Decision Support Services (IDSS)•Better understanding of societal impacts through social sciences

•Making our information more relevant to decision makers

•Participating directly in decision making

29

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

P-Surge 2.0 Enhancements

1. Apply most recent SLOSH basins Advantage: More accurate storm surge using modern vertical

datum (NAVD-88) Impact: Slower run times due to higher resolution

2. Above ground level as well as above datum Advantage: Enhanced communication as general users do not

understand datums Impact: More files to process

30

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

P-Surge 2.0 Enhancements

3. SLOSH + Tide Each ensemble member defines time allowing addition of a gridded tide Advantage: More accurate overland inundation Impact: More along track error samples (from 3 to 7)

4. Time component Create (13) 6-hour cumulative & (13) 6-hour incremental probability

products rather than (1) 80-hour cumulative probability product Advantage: Provides timing guidance Impact: Larger and more numerous files to process

31

Wave Run-Up Approach

A North Atlantic Regional Collaboration Team (NART) Project!

• Goal: Establish test sites in coastal “hotspots” Evaluate performance of Stockdon wave run up equations

• Hotspots are vulnerable locations with complex bathymetry and topography Ground surveys preferred over LIDAR Pristine Dune Systems and Non-Pristine Areas surveyed Seawalls, rocky shorelines, man-made dune systems, etc

32

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

Extra-Tropical Future Work

1. Extend Extra-Tropical Surge & Tide Operational Forecast System (ESTOFS) in FY14 to: Coastal Pacific, Hawaii, Gulf of Alaska Improve resolution to ~ 500 m

2. Develop 5 to 10 members ESTOFS based ensemble storm surge system for: East Coast, Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico

33

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

Extra-Tropical Future Work

3. ETSS-2.0 (Overland with Tides) Nest with SLOSH’s finer (< 500m) overland grids Use ½ degree or better GFS model output for forcing New Alaska Bering Sea / Nome Basin

4. Probabilistic Extra-Tropical Storm Surge (PETSS) Forcing via 21 GFS ensemble members (scalable to include

other ensemble model’s members)

5. Redesign processing used for www.nws.noaa.gov/mdl/etsurge

Allow greater flexibility for adding stations Output SHEF encoded messages

34

“Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods”

Training and Outreach

35

Coastal Storm Awareness Program (CSAP)

• Joint NOAA/Sea Grant (NJ-NY-CT)

• $1.8M Grant Program

• Social Science Research

• Related technology transfer

• Objective: better understand coastal storm hazards warning system

• Goal: better inform people so they remove themselves from harm

• 10 social science research projects were awarded

36

New Tropical Training - External

Develop comprehensive training program for NWS Partners on strengths & weaknesses of P-surge vs SLOSH MEOWS & single track SLOSH runs.

Interactive distance learning module for External Partners will be developed in FY14

37

New Tropical Training - Internal