Understanding Weather Hazards impacting the Eastern US Through Analysis of Cyclone Tracks, with a Focus on Storm Surge 

This talk will focus on hazards generated by hurricanes and extratropical cyclones along the US east coast. Overall, the talk will cover the climatological statistics of the hazards and characteristics of the storms that cause the hazards. Specifically, I will report on our analysis of historical storm surge observations, comparing the behavior of hurricanes and extratropical cyclones that generated extreme surge events. I will go into detail on probabilities of storm surge generated by hurricanes, and the skill, or lack thereof, in statistically modeling surge amplitude based on properties of the hurricanes that caused them. Then I will discuss long-duration storm surge events for the NYC region and the synoptic-scale atmospheric features that cause them. I will briefly discuss precipitation and high wind events for the northeast US – again focusing on the storms that generate the events. All of the statistical results utilize a cyclone track analysis approach to determine links between synoptic-scale organization of the storm and the traits of the hazards they produce. The results are then explained based on physical processes. Ultimately, the work presented advances our understanding of hazards and is useful for hazard management offices and National Weather Service offices. After focusing on storms associated with specific hazards, I will discuss a separate analysis on temporal clustering of cyclones. In this case, the results explain the behavior of the cyclones involved in clustering events, rather than hazards.

Host: Dr. Rick Luettich