FHICS – Successful forecast of Hurricane Ian impacts

Hurricane Ian was the first 2022 hurricane to make landfall in the continental USA with strong Cat 5 winds and large amounts of rain. The team of Deltares USA, Deltares Netherlands, USGS and NRL successfully applied the COSMOS modelling system to forecast hurricane Ian’s flood and morphological impact.

The Cosmos system consists of a chain of models to compute the surge and waves in US coastal waters, in order to estimate the flooding due to surge and direct rain fall, as well as dune erosion and breaching along the sandy shores (see previous posts about the model chain).

Using the Navy’s COAMPS forecasts of windspeed, pressure and rainfall we drove the model chain for the case of Hurricane Ian, providing 12 hr updates of flooding and erosion on our website (Note that the results displayed are experimental and should not be used to make any decisions).

The COAMPS wind field just prior to landfall showed intense Cat 5 winds at Naples, FL, and Ft. Myers, FL.

Figure 1: Snapshot of windfields just prior to landfall.

The resulting forecasted flood map showed extensive flooded areas from the coast to well inland due to a combination of surge (seawater flooding over land) but also due to direct rainfall.

Figure 2: Predicted flooding in the Ft. Myers area.

The initial results showed that the modelling system captured the signature of the flood curve well, but in fact overpredicted the surge at the Ft. Myers station. The team will further investigate the nature of this overestimation. We predicted the set down of very low water levels in Tampa Bay well.

Figure 3: Computed water levels (orange) at Ft Myers, with observations in green and the “normal” tidal fluctuations in blue.

Furthermore, we predicted extensive coastal erosion (in red) and breaching along the SW Florida coasts.

Figure 4: Estimates of dune erosion (red) and breaching (blue) along the SW Florida coasts.

Related Updates

November 30, 2023

The Deltares modelling teams present 2023 Hurricane season results at at Seattle all-hands meeting

At the Seattle All-hands meeting in November 2023, the Deltares Modelling Team presented their results on the 2023 Hurricane Season.

Read More
link arrow
October 30, 2023

NHCI presents radargrammetry results at TerraSAR-X / TanDEM-X Science Team Meeting 2023

Roland Romeiser and Hans Graber of the University of Miami presented NHCI radargrammetry project results at the TerraSAR-X / TanDEM-X Science Team Meeting in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany.

Read More
link arrow
October 16, 2023

Project Scientists Deploy Wave Buoys from NRL P3

As part of the NHCI response to Hurricane Lee, researchers in collaboration with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Scientific Development Squadron (VXS-1) airdropped wave buoys from a P3 aircraft on Thursday, September 14th, 2023.

Read More
link arrow