Statistical prediction of the storm surge associated with cool-weather storms at the Battery, New York

Abstract

The winter and early spring weather in the New York City metropolitan region is highly influenced by extratropical storm systems, and the storm surge associated with these systems is one of the main factors contributing to inundation of coastal areas. This study demonstrates the predictive capability of an established statistical relationship between the "storm maximum" storm surge associated with an extratropical storm system and the "average maximum" significant wave height during that storm. Data from publicly available retrospective forecasts of sea level pressure and wave heights, along with a regression equation for storm surge, were used to predict the storm-maximum storm surge for 41 storms in the New York metropolitan region during the period from February 2005 to December 2008. The statistical storm-surge estimates were compared with the surge values predicted by NOAA's extratropical storm-surge model and NOAA's operational surge forecast, which includes an error correction, and with water gauge observations taken at the Battery, located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, New York. The mean difference between the statistical surge prediction and the observed values is shown to be smaller than the difference between NOAA's deterministic surge prediction and the observed surge at the 95% significance level and to be statistically indistinguishable from the difference between NOAA's operational surge forecast and the observed values of surge. These statistical estimates can be used as part of a system for predicting coastal flooding. © 2011 American Meteorological Society.