Comparing hurricane and extratropical storm surge for the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Coast of the United States for 1979–2013

Abstract

This letter examines the magnitude, spatial footprint, and paths of hurricanes and extratropical cyclones (ETCs) that caused strong surge along the east coast of the US between 1979 and 2013. Lagrangian cyclone track information, for hurricanes and ETCs, is used to associate surge events with individual storms. First, hurricane influence is examined using ranked surged events per site. The fraction of hurricanes among storms associated with surge decreases from 20%-60% for the top 10 events to 10%-30% for the top 50 events, and a clear latitudinal gradient of hurricane influence emerges for larger sets of events. Secondly, surges on larger spatial domains are examined by focusing on storms that cause exceedance of the probabilistic 1-year surge return level at multiple stations. Results show that if the strongest events in terms of surge amplitude and spatial extent are considered, then hurricanes are most likely to create the hazards. However, when slightly less strong events that still impact multiple areas during the storm life cycle are considered, the relative importance of hurricanes shrinks as that of ETCs grows. Furthermore we find distinct paths for ETCs causing multisite surge at individual segments of the US east coast.

Winter storm intensity, hazards, and property losses in the New York tristate area

“…B and F)) on the basis of our analysis. This would be consistent with the results of previous work on storm surge and wind storms …”

“…B) are just as strong as those on March 12–15, 2010, but winds are blowing offshore. The onshore winds in the vicinity of New York City that occurred earlier in the storm life cycle were weaker (not shown), and the path of the storm is not typical of those that cause strong storm surges in the New York City region . Consistent with this, the 2005 storm did not lead to any flood losses.…”

“…The New York tristate area, which here refers to the coastal areas of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, is exposed to warm‐season tropical cyclones and cold‐season extratropical cyclones. These storms exhibit similar coastal impacts in terms of storm surge if the rare (i.e., one or two events in the past 40 years), most extreme events are excluded . Given the high frequency of extratropical cyclones, it is important to capture the distinct social and infrastructure vulnerabilities to winter storm hazards in the region, especially because extratropical storms are variable in terms of their intensity, frequency, path, precipitation types, and temperature characteristics.…”

The combined risk of extreme tropical cyclone winds and storm surges along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico Coast

“…This type of work is not unprecedented. Grinsted et al [2012] considered the geographic differences in storm surge threat across the Atlantic, and Booth et al [2016] compared storm surge between the mid-Atlantic and Northeast U.S. Coasts.…”

Impact of Tropical Cyclone Landfall Angle on Storm Surge Along the Mid‐Atlantic Bight

“…Despite their relatively infrequent occurrence along the northern portion of the U.S. Atlantic Coast, these surge events have produced substantial damages. In particular, the NJ‐NY region is characterized by these low‐frequency and high‐impact TC‐ and extratropical (Booth et al, ; Colle et al, ; Lin et al, ; Needham et al, ) cyclone‐induced storm surge events. Most notable are the Long Island Express Hurricane (1983), which produced storm surge of 3.0–3.5 m in Long Island (Lin et al, ), and more recently Hurricane Sandy (2012), a transitioning extratropical cyclone that tested the resilience of the NJ‐NY coastal region with typical storm surge heights of about 3–4 m (Blake et al, ).…”