1. NOAA’s Advances in Storm Surge Modeling & Prediction “Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods” Jason P. Tuell, Ph.D National Weather Service Eastern Region Director North Atlantic Regional Team Team Lead 1 February 25-26, 2014 HSRP Public Meeting

2. 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

3. Sandy Supplemental Congress 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. 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”

5. NOAA’s Model Production Suite 5

6. 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. 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. 8 Probabilistic Storm Surge with Tide

9. 9 “Storm Surge is often the greatest threat to lives & property from hurricane” Potential Storm Surge Flood Maps

10. 10 Nearshore Wave Prediction System WAVEWATCH III SWAN RTOFS ESTOFS

11. 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. 12 Wave Run-Up Initiative: 1 st tested during “Sandy” Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, October 2012 Correctly forecasted erosion and overwash Nearshore Waves ~ 31 ft

13. 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. 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. 15 Summary Sandy Supplemental enabling NOAA to make significant improvements is surge forecasting NOAA 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. 16 “Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods” Additional Slides

17. 17B Sandy Supplemental “Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods” NOAA Operational Computing Capacity

18. 18B GFS Evolution To 2018

19. 19 The High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) 7B

20. 20B GEFS Evolution To 2018

21. 21B Mesoscale

22. 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”

23. 23B New Outreach Fact Sheets

24. 24 28B

25. 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

26. 26B Clarifying Water Levels & Datum

27. 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!

28. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 www.nws.noaa.gov/mdl/etsurge Allow greater flexibility for adding stations Output SHEF encoded messages

34. 34 “Weather-Ready Nation: Saving Lives and Livelihoods” Training and Outreach

35. 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. 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. 37 New Tropical Training - Internal