Storm Surge Forerunners

[storm_in_a_teacup]

Today I attended a seminar lead by a scientist who specializes in storm surge research. One of the biggest things I learned about that I had never heard of was the storm surge "forerunner." It is basically another storm surge that travels ahead of the main surge and hits land 12-24 hours before the main surge. Most of the time it is weak but in some cases it can be strong. Apparently the 1900 Galveston storm and Hurricane Ike both had strong forerunners. In Ike's case it was responsible for most of the fatalities, as it happened before people had evacuated.

I found this paper with more information about it: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com ... 11GL047090

It seems it is more likely to be severe when it it forms from "large, strong, storms moving with moderate speed near wide, shallow, and smooth shelves" (quote from the paper).

So basically the coast of northeast Texas

[chaser1]

Interesting?!! I wonder if this is a type of impact that is fairly prevalent over in India?

[storm_in_a_teacup]

Interesting?!! I wonder if this is a type of impact that is fairly prevalent over in India?

Possibly, since the Bay of Bengal is infamous for really deadly storm surges and the forerunner seems to dramatically increase death tolls when it's strong (like with 1900 and Ike) but I'm not sure. I need to look at more papers. I just googled it yesterday evening and read the most cited paper about it.

[TomballEd]

Today I attended a seminar lead by a scientist who specializes in storm surge research. One of the biggest things I learned about that I had never heard of was the storm surge "forerunner." It is basically another storm surge that travels ahead of the main surge and hits land 12-24 hours before the main surge. Most of the time it is weak but in some cases it can be strong. Apparently the 1900 Galveston storm and Hurricane Ike both had strong forerunners. In Ike's case it was responsible for most of the fatalities, as it happened before people had evacuated.

I found this paper with more information about it: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com ... 11GL047090

It seems it is more likely to be severe when it it forms from "large, strong, storms moving with moderate speed near wide, shallow, and smooth shelves" (quote from the paper).

So basically the coast of northeast Texas

The USGS gauge of Buffalo Bayou at UH-Downtown, at downtown Houston, rose 8 feet IIRC by late afternoon and Greens Bayou was flooding a hotel parking lot north of I-10 during the late afternoon.

[chaser1]

That's interesting stuff . I'm not particularly familier with Indian Ocean depth gradient as it nears the coastline but I'm suspicous that it must be much less deep considering that I do recall how flooding seems to be a common occurance in that part of the world.

[psyclone]

Nice to see Dennis (05) referenced in this piece. Dennis generated a large surge on the west coast of FL which became massive when the surge ran out of ocean up in the big bend. I think St Marks had a bigger water rise than anywhere near the landfall point. The flooding was insane and unexpected. Overall an enclosed sea basin like the gulf is probably far more vulnerable to such an event...especially in the corners of the bathtub. Kinda seems related to a meteotsunami or a seiche type event and there's probably some type of overlap there. Fascinating

[Ptarmigan]

Interesting?!! I wonder if this is a type of impact that is fairly prevalent over in India?

I would not be surprised if this happens in Bangladesh and India. I wonder if this happened with Katrina, Sandy, or Haiyan (Yolanda).