A storm surge forecasting system for the Singapore Strait

Abstract

Being a small low-lying island nation, Singapore has a high density population, recreational and industrial facilities along the coast. It is thus highly vulnerable to weather extremes including storm surges. Strong sea level surges due to the northeast monsoon when coinciding with spring tides may lead to coastal floods in the southwest regions of the South China Sea including Singapore Strait, with the heights of about 0.3-0.5 m observed from tidal records and satellite altimetry. We developed an operational system codenamed “Stormy” to provide storm surge forecasts for the Sunda Shelf with focus on the Singapore Strait for a lead time of 6–7 days. Stormy has been working operationally since February 2013, successfully capturing storm surge events on 19–30 December 2013 and 14–23 February 2014. Stormy’s web-based portal has an intuitive visual user interface which conveniently offers forecast products, including evolutional plan-view and time-series of storm surge heights compared with historical anomalies.