Development of operational multi-scale storm surge inundated model and application of 2013 typhoon Haiyan

Abstract

The coastal regions in Eastern Asia are under the potential threat of storm surges, especially the surge inundation caused by typhoons. In this study, the COMCOT (COrnell Multi-grid Coupled Tsunami Model) storm surge model has been developed for the approach of operational process and successfully coupled with dynamic atmospheric WRF model and global tidal TPXO 7.1 model. The large-scale and near-shore storm surge propagation could be simulated simultaneously with nested-grid scheme, and high-resolution inundated areas could also be calculated from the wet-dry-cell method. The destructive storm surge event induced by 2013 Typhoon Haiyan is chosen as the case study in this research, and the non-symmetric WRF fields and TPXO tidal effect are both considered in this case. From simulated results, the storm surges are concentric before Typhoon Haiyan landing off the Philippines because the pressure gradient was significant at that time, and then storm surges are concentrated at near-shore regions when wind shear stress turn to be the main force after landing off. The relationship between maximum storm surges and typhoon crack is also found in this study. More details would be presented at 2016 IUTAM Symposium.