Operational Forecasting of Tropical Cyclones Storm Surges at Meteo-France

Abstract

A depth-averaged, numerical storm-surge model has been developed and configured to provide a stand-alone system to forecast tropical cyclone storm-surges. The primary data requirement for modeling storm surges is accurate surface wind and atmospheric pressure fields, in particular in the vicinity of maximum winds. These fields are inferred from an analytical-empirical cyclone model, which requires only cyclone position, intensity, and size. The model has been adapted to run on a personal computer in a few minutes. The storm-surge model was tested in hindcast mode on tropical cyclones which gave significant surges over the French overseas territories during the period 1975–1990. The system has been operated since the 1990s in the French Antilles, New Caledonia, the French Polynesia, and La Reunion. The model can be used in two different ways. In real-time mode as a tropical cyclone is approaching an island or in climatological mode: a cyclone climatology is used to prepare a database of precomputed surges.

Keywords:

• Storm surge
• tropical cyclone
• operational model

Notes

∗ denotes estimated observations