When thinking about storm surges it pays to realize sea level rise increases tides, especially storm surges.
As realized with Hurricane Katrina, storm surges are driven by wind velocity. The point is storm surges will be higher no matter the wind velocity. So, if Louisiana normally receives storm surges of a Category 1 hurricane that are 7 to 10 feet high, that will change to a foot or more higher.
Storm surges as seen with Katrina is not 'the norm.' The biggest and the greatest is always somethings Americans focus on, but, 'the norm' is far more frequent and just as upsetting.
As realized with Hurricane Katrina, storm surges are driven by wind velocity. The point is storm surges will be higher no matter the wind velocity. So, if Louisiana normally receives storm surges of a Category 1 hurricane that are 7 to 10 feet high, that will change to a foot or more higher.
Storm surges as seen with Katrina is not 'the norm.' The biggest and the greatest is always somethings Americans focus on, but, 'the norm' is far more frequent and just as upsetting.
Figure 1. A survey team found a damage trimline on the exterior of the Beau Rivage Lighthouse in Biloxi, Mississippi, at an elevation of 34.1 feet above mean sea level. This represents the highest High Water Mark ever recorded for an Atlantic Hurricane. Image credit: Hermann Fritz, Georgia Tech University.
By Jeffrey Masters, Ph.D.
Director of Meteorology, Weather Underground, Inc.
The highest documented storm surge in the U.S. (click here) occurred in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina, when Pass Christian, MS, recorded a 27.8 foot storm surge above mean sea level. The highest High Water Mark on record for a U.S. hurricane occurred in Biloxi, MS during Katrina, where a High Water Mark of 34.1 feet above mean sea level was recorded on the outside of the Beau Rivage Lighthouse (Figure 1). The surge was 22 feet high in Biloxi, so the combination of the tide (about 1 foot) and 11-foot waves on top of the storm surge created the 34.1-foot high water mark....
International storm surges larger than Katrina.
By Jeffrey Masters, Ph.D.
Director of Meteorology, Weather Underground, Inc.
The Bathurst Bay Cyclone, (click here) also known as Tropical Cyclone Mahina, which struck Bathurst Bay, Australia on March 5, 1899, is generally credited with the world record for storm surge. The cyclone's storm surge is variously listed at 13 - 14.6 meters (43 - 48 feet). The Category 5 cyclone was a monster--with sustained winds in excess of 175 mph and a central pressure between 880 and 914 mb. Mahina killed at least 307 people, mostly on pearling ships, and was the deadliest cyclone in Australian history. The eyewitness account of Mahina's record storm surge was provided by Constable J. M. Kenny, who journeyed to Barrow Point on Bathurst Bay to investigate a crime on the day of the storm. While camped on a ridge 40 feet above sea level and 1/2 mile inland, Kenny's camp was inundated by a storm wave, reaching waist-deep. On nearby Flinders Island, fish and dolphins were found on top of 15 meter (49 foot) cliffs. However, an analysis by Nott and Hayne (2000) found no evidence of storm-deposited debris higher than 3 - 5 meters above mean sea level in the region. They also cited two computer storm surge simulations of the cyclone that were unable to generate a surge higher than three meters....
A movement to recognize the most deadly storm in Australia's history.
28 December 2014
By Jack Kerr
The 101 ton schooner "Ladden" dragged anchor, but, survived Cyclone Mahina.
The deadliest cyclone (click here) in recorded Australian history could be upgraded to the most intense one to ever hit the southern hemisphere.
About 300 people died when Cyclone Mahina made landfall at Bathurst Bay, a popular spot for pearling fleets on Queensland's Cape York, in March 1899.
"It was almost a perfect cyclone," says Ian Townsend, an ABC journalist whose dramatisation of Cyclone Mahina, The Devil's Eye, was published in 2008.
Mahina's wind, waves and storm surge annihilated dozens of ships and left the landscape scoured.
Dead porpoises were later found lying on clifftops, thrown there by the massive swells the cyclone had stirred up.
People on Thursday Island, hundreds of kilometres away, say lightning from Mahina lit up the sky from one end of the horizon to the other.
On board the only ship to make it through the cyclone, Mahina's intensity was recorded at 880 hectopascals.
"This was an incredible storm, phenomenal in so many ways. It was like a ball of energy that was spinning across the Coral Sea," Townsend said....
