Storm Surge and Surface Waves in a Shallow Lagoonal Estuary during the Crossing of a Hurricane
Publication: Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 141, Issue 4
Abstract
Tropical cyclones deliver intense winds that can generate some of the most severe surface wave and storm surge conditions in the coastal ocean. Hurricane Irene (2011) crossed a large, shallow lagoonal estuarine system in North Carolina, causing flooding and erosion of the adjacent low-lying coastal plain and barrier islands. This event provided an opportunity to improve understanding of the estuarine response to strong and rotating wind forcing. Observations from acoustic sensors in subestuaries and water-level elevation measurements from a network of pressure sensors across the system are presented. Data are examined with two modeling techniques: (1) a simple numerical approach using a momentum balance between the wind stress, flow acceleration, pressure gradient, and bottom friction that gives insight into temporal variability in water levels through the passage of the storm; and (2) an advanced hydrodynamic model based on the full shallow water fluid momentum equations, coupled to a spectral surface wave model that accounts for the spatially varying bathymetry and wind field. The results indicate that both wind-generated surface waves and the wind-driven storm surge are important contributors to the total water surface elevations that induce flooding along estuarine shorelines under strong hurricane forcing.
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Acknowledgments
This work is motivated by the need to understand the response of the APES to hurricanes and to climate change, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, with David Mallinson at East Carolina University (ECU). R. P. Mulligan also acknowledges support from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and a Research Initiation Grant from Queen’s University. The authors thank Jesse McNinch, Jeff Hanson, and Kent Hathaway at the FRF for the Aquadopp data and D. Reide Corbett at ECU for deploying the Vector just before the hurricane. Helpful comments from Bill Birkemeier and three anonymous reviewers are gratefully acknowledged.
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Published In
Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 141 • Issue 4 • July 2015
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 11, 2012
Accepted: Mar 4, 2014
Published online: May 30, 2014
Published in print: Jul 1, 2015
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