Author(s): Taide Ding; Yan Ding; Yafei Jia; Mustafa Altinakar
Linked Author(s): Mustafa Altinakar
Keywords: Tropical Storm Wind; Storm Landfall; Storm Surge; Numerical Modeling; Coastal Processes; Wind-induced Wave
Abstract: Landfall of tropical cyclones is a critical moment when storm surges reach to their peak heights at coasts. Most existing tropical cyclone parametric wind models neglect this landfall effect. Meanwhile, real-time prediction of storm surges in regional scale coasts and oceans heavily relies on high performance computers which are expensive. In this research, a simple but accurate nonlinear hurricane cyclonic wind model is developed by considering the decay effect of landfall and the earth surface resistance. This model is validated by simulating historical hurricanes in the northern Gulf Coast. A database for determining the parameter values for decay and surface resistance has been established. It then is integrated into a storm-surge model. This integrated model is validated by simulating wind and storm surges in Hurricane Gustav (2008). To improve accuracy of the storm-surge model, a number of formulations for estimating wind stress have been tested. Finally, real-time predictions for Hurricane Isaac advisories (2012) were carried out during the hurricane duration on a laptop computer. The predicted wind and storm surges are in good agreement with NOAA’s observations.
Year: 2013