Talk:Storm surge

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Good article Storm surge has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
April 19, 2007 Good article nominee Listed
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[edit] 90%

"Nine out of ten people who die in hurricanes are killed by storm surge."

In the US, only 1% are killed by storm surge (in modern times). 59% die in inland freshwater flooding. I'd imagine it's similar in the rest of the Atlantic, as the major killers of the last few decades (eg: Mitch) have done so through inland flooding and associated mudslides. -- Cyrius|✎ 9 July 2005 06:03 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right, but more people die in the Bay of Bengal area than anywhere else, and they are almost all from storm surge. In most storms nobody is killed by storm surge, but every now and then a storm surge will cover an entire city and vast numbers will die. My point is that any statement like this has to be qualified. (P.S. Where does the 59% number come from? Does this include storm surges on lakes like the Okeechobee Hurricane?) Jdorje 01:42, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


The 90% figure is right for U.S. hurricane-related deaths before about 1970. The loss of life attributed to Camille's storm surge was a/the motivating factor for the U.S. National Weather Service to do something about it. The results of thousands of hypothetical hurricanes "run" through the NWS's numerical model, SLOSH, have been used to show surge vulnerability along the entire Gulf and Atlantic U.S. coastlines. Emergency Managers successfully use these results to plan coastal evacuations. SBaig 2010 UTC, 06 December 2005.

Stephen, I did not know you wiki! Would like to expand the article on storm surge (like I'm ever going to have time to do that...) and if so sure could use your help (like you're ever going to have time to do that...). Mkieper 03:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biggest surge

I've just watched a program about Katrina, and they mentioned that the surge produced by Ivan is still the biggest in America's history.

I think it's premature to change the article to include Katrina's surge, since this is very approximate. Camille's surge is well documented at 23 (or whatever) feet, and we can surely find a NOAA source for this. Finding a reliable source for Ivan or Katrina will be harder. I think we can just qualify the Camille number with "as of 2003". Jdorje 22:16, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
I honestly believe that after the research is done, it will be found that Katrina's storm surge will be the highest ever recorded. The surge was so high and reached so far inland that it destroyed area's of the MS Gulf Coast that were uneffected by surge during Camille. A friend of mine has a house approximately 1/2 mile above the beach in Bay St. Louis, MS. When the house was built, it was surveyed to be in a "flood free" zone, having an elevation of 34 feet above sea level at the foundation (ie., 34' above the Gulf of Mexico just 1/2 mile away). During the height of the surge, water stood approximately 9 feet in the bottom floor of the house. The math is fairly simple, if the foundation of his house is at 34' and he had 9' of water above that, then the storm surge in the hardest hit county (Hancock) of the MS coast had to be 40+ feet at a minimum. I don't feel that Ivan can be too greatly compared to Katrina in regards to the surge. Though Ivan did a lot of damage, Katrina's surge was much greater. Remember, Ivan hit right at the Mobile Bay, yet Katrina caused the worst floods in Mobile history and it's eye (the heart of the storm) was many miles to the west. --- A resident of MS Gulf Coast, 12 Sept, 2005.
  • * * * * *

If you review a topography map, you will see that the highest point in BSL, and it is a small area, is only 25 ft above sea level (which is why the EOC and other police and fire depts remained in such a vulnerable position prior to the storm: sturdy buildings like the courthouse and the sheriff's dept have to be located in the county seat, and BSL is actually one of the highest areas along the coast of Hancock Cty, so there really wasn't any other place for them to locate without going so far inland they'd be in the sticks; Jackson Cty was in a similar situation). It is extremely common for homeowners to think that their home is higher than it actually is, and I'm not sure what the source of that problem may be (I'm wondering if insurance companies have anything to do with it?). My mother in Moss Point MS was conviced her house was 20 ft above sea level; it was flooded by Katrina and is actually 11-12 ft above sea level. Reading online articles in the MS Press and Sun Herald I discovered a woman on Mary Walker Bayou thought her house was 18 ft elevation; it was 10 (rcvd 5 ft of surge), and someone in Ocean Springs thought their home was 30 ft elevation; it was more like 21-22 ft.

The flood line can be measured, but an analysis has to be done to determine what portion of that was storm surge, what portion was high tide, what portion (in some places) may be due to flooding from rain.

I'll probably be documenting something for Kat's storm surge for Wiki once more surge info becomes avail. I've already done a lot of unofficial work mapping the surge line in the aerial photos against topographic maps for the eastern part of the MS coastline.

Mkieper 21:14, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What?

Can someone please clarify what exactly a storm surge is: To wit -- Is it a giant tidal wave, or a flood that comes in like a tidal wave.

Hi, A storm surge is a flood that comes in like a tidal wave. It is caused by the extreem winds that come with a Tropical Cyclone. However, on top of this storm surge the winds also cause huge waves that are like mini tidal waves.

Perhaps you should read the article. A storm surge does not come in like a tidal wave (tsunami), it comes in like a tide: slowly. And it dissipates much more slowly as well - about 1 foot per mile - so it can penetrate much farther inland if the elevation remains low enough. And yes there are waves on top of it but these don't behave like tsunamis either, they are just regular waves - but potentially very large. — jdorje (talk) 19:51, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Just to note, recent research shows that the type of damage occuring from tsunamis and storm surge is similar, in spite of the differences (explained corrrectly above) in speed of inundation and wave effect: http://engineering.princeton.edu/news/young Margie 16:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I have modified the article to explain the difference bewteen storm surge and storm tide, and how the two terms are used interchangeably in casual usage. I also started cleaning up the paragraph listing record storm surges (all of which were actually storm tide records), and found the entire paragraph had been lifted verbatim from a NASA web page (which in turn was probably cut and pasted from some NOAA web page, I would imagine). I made a number of modifications so that it is no longer a cut-and-paste. When lifting entire paragraphs, shouldn't these be referenced as a quote, rather than appearing to be original writing? Margie 16:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NOAA Definition of Storm Surge With Motion Chart.

Storm surge appears to be a change in water level more like an exceptionally high tide rather than the "wall of water" popularly portrayed in the media. The rate of change appears to be associated with speed of approach of storm and the height by the windspeed. Levels can be affected by shape of shoreline and slope of the bottom as tides can be effected. Increasing height of waves will of course be added on top of the surge and the stage of tide present. Surge appears to go from average to max in very roughly eight hours in the model linked below. I would expect the rate of change in feet per hour to increase with the maximum height of the surge.

NOAA explanation:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/storm_surge.shtml

Graphic model of 1998 Gulf storm:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/surge/slosh2.gif

I would welcome expert opinion here since my impressions have been derived from about a half hour of study and the application of what I hope is common sense. Tobyw 07:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Storm surge associated with tropical cyclones moves inland at the same speed the TC is moving. For a TC moving at 15 mph, as Katrina was when landfalling on the MS coastline, the surge comes in at 15 mph. This may not seem very fast, but is equivalent to speeds seen in white water rapids. Surge often does rise rapidly; many people in MS were killed in their homes when the water came in so quickly, with such a strong current, that they could not make it out a window or door. Wiki has an image of Katrina's surge taken by Judith Bradford of Waveland -- when I interviewed her, she told me that water came in and rose to the ceiling of their first floor in only 10 minutes. Margie 17:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Importance

I don't think this article should be top importance. High is probably more appropriate, IMO. Hurricanehink (talk) 03:57, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Only the core article tropical cyclone and the flagship article Hurricane Katrina should be Top-importance IMO. CrazyC83 01:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
I dropped it to high importance, as the topic is still pretty important. Hurricanehink (talk) 15:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Raised back to top, as we upgraded the top 12 articles to top on the WikiProject's talk. Titoxd(?!?) 22:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SLOSH added

Now that information regarding SLOSH has been added, the article should be ready for GA. I submitted the article for GA today. Hopefully more useful suggestions for improvement will spring forth in short order. Thegreatdr 00:45, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Storm tide

I think this article is certainly getting there. However, storm tide should be discussed in the article of that name, its related but not the same. At the same time it should be an article in its own right. As casual uses confuses the two, a section on the two here explaining the differences is important; but once the distinction is explained this article should be about surge and not tide.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Pass

I have passed this article as a GA. A few suggestions though: more references are needed before you take it to FAC, the Mitigation section could use some expansion, and you might consider converting the diagram in the Mechanics section to SVG. Overall, though, this is a well-written article. Good luck with any future plans you may have for it. —Scott5114↗ 20:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC)