A new, high-resolution, hydrodynamic model that encompasses the urban coastal waters of New Jersey along the Hudson River Waterfront opposite New York City, New York, has been developed and validated for simulating inundation during Hurricane Sandy. A 3.1-m-resolution square model grid combined with a high-resolution lidar elevation dataset permits a street-by-street focus to inundation modeling. The waterfront inundation model is a triple-nested Stevens Institute Estuarine and Coastal Ocean Hydrodynamic Model (sECOM) application; sECOM is a successor model to the Princeton Ocean Model family of models. Robust flooding and drying of land in the model physics provides for the dynamic prediction of flood elevations and velocities across land features during inundation events. The inundation model was forced by water levels from the extensively validated New York Harbor Observing and Prediction System (NYHOPS) hindcast of that hurricane. Validation against 56 watermarks and 16 edgemarks provided via the USGS and through an extensive crowdsourcing effort consisting of photographs, videos, and personal stories shows that the model is capable of computing overland water elevations quite accurately throughout the entire surge event. The correlation coefficient (R2) between the watermark observations and the model results is 0.92. The standard deviation of the residual error is 0.07 m. Comparisons to the 16 flood edgemarks suggest that the model was able to reproduce flood extent to within 20 m. Because the model was able to capture the spatial and temporal variation of water levels in the region observed during Hurricane Sandy, it was used to identify the flood pathways and suggest where flood-preventing interventions could be built.
This paper presents the automation, website interface, and verification of the Stevens Flood Advisory System (SFAS, http://stevens.edu/SFAS). The fully-automated, ensemble-based flood advisory system dynamically integrates real-time observations and river and coastal flood models forced by an ensemble of meteorological models at various scales to produce and serve street scale flood forecasts over urban terrain. SFAS is applied to the Greater NY/NJ Metropolitan region, and is used routinely by multiple forecast offices and departments within the US National Weather Service (NWS), regional and municipal Offices of Emergency Management, as well as the general public. Every six hours, the underlying H 3 E (Hydrologic-Hydraulic-Hydrodynamic Ensemble) modelling framework, prepares, runs, data-assimilates, and integrates results from 375 dynamic model simulations to produce actionable, probabilistic ensemble forecasts of upland and coastal (storm surge) flooding conditions with an 81-h forecast horizon. Meteorological forcing to the H 3 E models is provided by 125 weather model ensemble members as well as deterministic weather models from major weather agencies (NCEP, ECMWF, CMC) and academia. The state-of-the-art SFAS, a replacement of the well-known, but deterministic, Storm Surge Warning System (SSWS) that was highlighted during Hurricanes Irene and Sandy and more recently extratropical cyclone Jonas, has been operational since the end of 2015.
These communities were specifically chosen due to their close proximity to one another and the vast difference in damage each experienced. Sea Girt and Mantoloking bracket the study area, and are located less than 12 km apart, with Bay Head located in between. In comparison to one another, Sea Girt experienced the least amount of damage, Bay Head experienced a moderate amount, while Mantoloking was severely damaged. Under the NSF funding, field data including watermarks, structure damage assessments, and scour information were collected. This data is currently being used to evaluate several different factors in an attempt to determine why Sea Girt fared so well, compared to Bay Head and Mantoloking, and why some portions of Mantoloking were nearly completely destroyed, while others were minimally impacted. Several conclusions arising from this study are that: (1) structural damage to houses in Bay Head and Mantoloking was a direct result of wave impact, overland surge propagation, and/or severe scour; (2) both Bay Head and Mantoloking experienced flooding from the bayside, although the intensity varied tremendously between the two boroughs, (3) the presence of an existing rock seawall along Bay Head's dune line significantly mitigated storm surge propagation though the Borough and direct wave attack on the oceanfront structures; and (4) Sea Girt experienced the least amount of flooding and structural damage due to its natural high elevation, as well as its protective wide beach and high dune system. The data from this study has been utilized to validate and evaluate several storm models currently being applied to investigate the damaging effects of Sandy along the coasts of New York and New Jersey. Ultimately, the objective is to utilize the modeling techniques and assessments derived from these measurements to help coastal communities recover and rebuild from future natural disasters.
In June 2002, a high-frequency air-sea momentum system was deployed in the surf zone for 3 days as part of an experiment to quantify air-sea momentum transfer when the wind and wave direction were at angles. The system obtained measurements in the nearshore via a high-resolution Campbell Scientific CSAT3 3D sonic anemometer and five high-frequency saltwater wave staffs. An advantage of the air-sea momentum system is that direct measurements of the atmospheric turbulent fluctuations can be obtained and applied to the calculation of momentum transfer at the air-sea interface. The Campbell Scientific CSAT3 sonic anemometer was postcalibrated under turbulent wind conditions to determine incident wind direction measurements influenced by the geometry of the instrument. Measurement results are compared to a pre-established benchmark, constant tow speed; and the mean wind speed, incident wind direction, and spectral density characteristics are evaluated to resolve specific instrument orientations in which the measurements are corrupted by the head and probe supports of the sonic anemometer.Calibration testing of the sonic anemometer determined that the mean wind speeds are reduced by 16% over a 408 range for incident wind angles of 1608-2008 relative to the head of the anemometer. Tilting the anemometer is found to decrease mean wind speed reduction influenced by the geometry of the anemometer. Variations in the measured wind directions were found to be greater than 18 for incident wind angles between 1608 and 2008 for 08 and 108 of tilt. Spectral characteristics were highly repeatable for all wind angles except for incident wind angles of 1808 for 08 and 108 of tilt.
This paper presents the automation, website interface, and verification of the Stevens Flood Advisory System (SFAS, http://stevens.edu/SFAS). The fully-automated, ensemble-based flood advisory system dynamically integrates real-time observations and river and coastal flood models forced by an ensemble of meteorological models at various scales to produce and serve street scale flood forecasts over urban terrain. SFAS is applied to the Greater NY/NJ Metropolitan region, and is used routinely by multiple forecast offices and departments within the US National Weather Service (NWS), regional and municipal Offices of Emergency Management, as well as the general public. Every six hours, the underlying H 3 E (Hydrologic-Hydraulic-Hydrodynamic Ensemble) modelling framework, prepares, runs, data-assimilates, and integrates results from 375 dynamic model simulations to produce actionable, probabilistic ensemble forecasts of upland and coastal (storm surge) flooding conditions with an 81-h forecast horizon. Meteorological forcing to the H 3 E models is provided by 125 weather model ensemble members as well as deterministic weather models from major weather agencies (NCEP, ECMWF, CMC) and academia. The state-of-the-art SFAS, a replacement of the well-known, but deterministic, Storm Surge Warning System (SSWS) that was highlighted during Hurricanes Irene and Sandy and more recently extratropical cyclone Jonas, has been operational since the end of 2015.
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