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1 STORM SURGES IN PUERTO RICO The project that lead to the maps mentioned below was sponsored by the Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System (CariCOOS) and the Puerto Rico Coastal Zone Management Program (PRCZMP), part of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources of Puerto Rico. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this page is to present the latest storm surge maps for the archipelago of Puerto Rico, with the exception of Mona Island. Specifically, an updated version of the Hurricane Storm Tide Atlas that was produced in the early 1990s. In contradistinction to the FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps, which are based on probabilities (100- and 500-year Return Period hurricane scenarios), these results are more straightforward, with no probabilities involved. One just models the potential coastal flooding (by just sea water) to be expected during the passage of hurricanes of different categories (Saffir- Simpson scale: 1 to 5), along different trajectories (headings). Four headings were modeled. Here I will give a very brief summary of what was done. For further details please download the final report, titled “Storm Surge Modeling in Puerto Rico in Support of Emergency Response, Risk Assessment, Coastal Planning and Climate Change Analysis”. First let us clearly define what we are trying to predict. The storm surge is an anomalous increase in the sea level elevation that is associated with a landfalling, or near landfalling, hurricane. It is what you would observe if you were inside a beach house, the sea level outside is rising due to the landfalling storm, and all kinds of waves might be impinging against the outside of the house, and you observe sea water entering the house through window and door gaps. This entering water will slowly fill in your house, but with no waves inside the house. It will leave marks on the sidewalls showing up to where it flooded, but it is stillwater (SWE) elevation. No waves enter the house. It is the elevation a tidal gauge at the site will measure. This stillwater elevation is what computer models typically compute. See Figure 1. The figure below shows a schematic of the process, in this case for Hurricane Sandy (2012). You have the Mean Sea Level (MSL), and on top an additional SWE rise due to the astronomical tide (+4.7 feet). Then you have an additional SWE rise of 11 ft (for Hurricane Sandy) due to the hurricane, and that’s the (overall) storm surge (11 ft above the tide). Note how the storm surge is represented by a straight line, showing that it does not include the storm wind waves that propagate inland on top of the storm surge. These wind waves are represented in the schematic by the representation of a wave labelled “Additional Wave Height”. It is important to understand that although the model used to compute the overall SWE (the storm surge) includes a wave model that predicts the storm wind waves (what is labelled in the schematic as the “Additional Wave Height”), this is done because the computation of these “Additional Wave Heights” is needed in order to compute one important component of the three components that contribute to the overall SWE (storm surge), which is known as the “wave setup” (WS). That is why I use the word “overall” storm surge. It is composed of three factors (to be explained below): pressure setup (PS), wind setup (WS), and wave setup (WS). Figure 2 shows the “overall” SWE. Note that it has no wind waves riding on top of it. Having said that, the model we used (ADCIRC+SWAN, see report), in addition to outputting the SWE, it also outputs what is called the “Significant Wave Height” (labelled as Hs), which is a measure of the height of the waves that propagate on top of the storm surge (from now on we will omit the use of “overall”). In other words, it also gives us an idea of what is labelled in Figure 1 as the”. But these “Additional Wave Heights” are given on a separate set of maps. A caveat: although the storm surge for Katrina and Irene are shown as horizontal lines, in reality the elevation of the storm

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1

STORM SURGES IN PUERTO RICO

The project that lead to the maps mentioned below was sponsored by the Caribbean Coastal Ocean

Observing System (CariCOOS) and the Puerto Rico Coastal Zone Management Program (PRCZMP), part

of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources of Puerto Rico.

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this page is to present the latest storm surge maps for the archipelago of Puerto Rico,

with the exception of Mona Island. Specifically, an updated version of the Hurricane Storm Tide Atlas

that was produced in the early 1990s. In contradistinction to the FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps,

which are based on probabilities (100- and 500-year Return Period hurricane scenarios), these results

are more straightforward, with no probabilities involved. One just models the potential coastal flooding

(by just sea water) to be expected during the passage of hurricanes of different categories (Saffir-

Simpson scale: 1 to 5), along different trajectories (headings). Four headings were modeled.

Here I will give a very brief summary of what was done. For further details please download the final

report, titled “Storm Surge Modeling in Puerto Rico in Support of Emergency Response, Risk

Assessment, Coastal Planning and Climate Change Analysis”. First let us clearly define what we are trying

to predict. The storm surge is an anomalous increase in the sea level elevation that is associated with a

landfalling, or near landfalling, hurricane. It is what you would observe if you were inside a beach house,

the sea level outside is rising due to the landfalling storm, and all kinds of waves might be impinging

against the outside of the house, and you observe sea water entering the house through window and

door gaps. This entering water will slowly fill in your house, but with no waves inside the house. It will

leave marks on the sidewalls showing up to where it flooded, but it is stillwater (SWE) elevation. No

waves enter the house. It is the elevation a tidal gauge at the site will measure. This stillwater elevation

is what computer models typically compute. See Figure 1.

The figure below shows a schematic of the process, in this case for Hurricane Sandy (2012). You have the

Mean Sea Level (MSL), and on top an additional SWE rise due to the astronomical tide (+4.7 feet). Then

you have an additional SWE rise of 11 ft (for Hurricane Sandy) due to the hurricane, and that’s the

(overall) storm surge (11 ft above the tide). Note how the storm surge is represented by a straight line,

showing that it does not include the storm wind waves that propagate inland on top of the storm surge.

These wind waves are represented in the schematic by the representation of a wave labelled “Additional

Wave Height”. It is important to understand that although the model used to compute the overall SWE

(the storm surge) includes a wave model that predicts the storm wind waves (what is labelled in the

schematic as the “Additional Wave Height”), this is done because the computation of these “Additional

Wave Heights” is needed in order to compute one important component of the three components that

contribute to the overall SWE (storm surge), which is known as the “wave setup” (WS). That is why I use

the word “overall” storm surge. It is composed of three factors (to be explained below): pressure setup

(PS), wind setup (WS), and wave setup (WS). Figure 2 shows the “overall” SWE. Note that it has no wind

waves riding on top of it. Having said that, the model we used (ADCIRC+SWAN, see report), in addition

to outputting the SWE, it also outputs what is called the “Significant Wave Height” (labelled as Hs),

which is a measure of the height of the waves that propagate on top of the storm surge (from now on

we will omit the use of “overall”). In other words, it also gives us an idea of what is labelled in Figure 1 as

the”. But these “Additional Wave Heights” are given on a separate set of maps. A caveat: although the

storm surge for Katrina and Irene are shown as horizontal lines, in reality the elevation of the storm

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surge varies with position, and, at its peak, it increases in elevation as you move shoreward (see Figure

3).

For completeness, sometimes the effect of the Coriolis force (due to the rotation of the earth) can cause

a slight, additional elevation anomaly. This happens when strong currents are generated alongshore. But

I won’t consider this possibility here.

The maps we call “storm surge maps”, or the Atlas of Storm Surges for Puerto Rico, only show the

flooding due to the storm surge (SWE). This is shown the scene in Figure 2. No waves, just stillwater. The

additional flooding due the waves that propagate on top of the storm surge, and which in islands like

Figure 1 – Schematic of the “overall” storm surge. Examples for Hurricanes Katrina and Irene are shown.

Figure 2 – Inland flooding by the storm surge, a quasi-static, anomalous, sea level rise caused by the passage of a hurricane.

Puerto Rico (and even at other places) can increase the inland flooding by a factor of 2, will be tackled in

a separate study. This is the additional flooding due to wave runup and overtopping. This is shown in the

schematic shown in Figure 3, which again shows the MSL, the PS, the WS, and the WS (the sum of the

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three is the storm surge SWE), but it also shows a wave crest propagating inland on top of the storm

surge. When this wave reaches shallow water it breaks down and sends towards shore a tongue of

water that increases the flooding inland (this is the runup). And if this tongue overtops the highest

inland elevation, it then can flood inland by just gravity effects (water flows downhill on the lee of the

highest elevation). Figure 4 shows the inland penetration of wave runup next to Madeira Apartments in

San Juan (close to El Ultimo Trolley). This runup sometimes overtops the highest point in the beach and

the Llorens Torres residential area gets flooded by the overtopping water that flows there just by

gravity. The Atlas of Storm Surges for Puerto Rico does not contemplate right now this type of flooding.

Figure 3 – Another schematic of the storm surge, now showing the three main components: setups due to pressure, wind, and waves..

Figure 4 – Photo of wave runup next to Madeira Apartments in El Ultimo Trolley, San Juan. This was due to an extra-tropical winter storm in March 2008.

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As stated before, the storm surge (SWE) has three components (see Figure 3):

Pressure setup (this is an increase in sea level associated with the low atmospheric pressure

existing near the center of the hurricane). A rule of thumb is that sea level rises approximately 1

cm for each pressure drop of one millibar in the eye of the hurricane, relative to a mean value of

something like 1013 millibar. This component travels with the hurricane, even in deep water.

Wind setup is due to accumulation of water against the coastline on the right hand side of the

hurricane track. It is simply due to the fact that the wind drag pushes water towards the shore

when making landfall. This component is the most dominating in broad, and shallow,

continental shelves, but in islands like Puerto Rico, with very narrow, and deep, island shelves,

its importance becomes of the same magnitude as the other two components of the storm

surge. But for strong/intense hurricanes it can dominate. This contribution increases as we

move from offshore to inshore (see Figure 3).

Wave setup (static wave setup) is slightly more complex, but it can be extremely important

around islands like Puerto Rico that have very narrow/deep shelves. It is related with the raise in

sea level at the shoreline when it is under attack by trains of waves. Shoreward of a certain

depth, where waves are constantly breaking, water accumulates and sea level rises. This

contribution increases as we move from offshore to inshore (see Figure 3). It attains a maximum

inland of the Mean Sea Level (MSL) shoreline. Wave setup itself can have two components. The

wave setup associated with the overall stillwater elevation (the SWE) is often called the static

wave setup. This is to distinguish it from the dynamic wave setup, which can be as damaging as

the static one, or even worse. The dynamic wave setup is like a long period (periods of 30

seconds up to several minutes), coastally trapped, wave that propagates alongshore. It is not

included in the Atlas, and it is a topic of research in Puerto Rico as we speak. It just suffices to

mention that its presence can be tsunami-like. One was captured in a video during the

landfalling of Hurricane Haiyan in The Philippines (http://phys.org/news/2015-08-typhoon-

haiyan-destructive-tsunami-like-surf.html; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNh-_SXdUgA;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUZFW54vtDo – starting at 12 seconds in the video). It

should be stated that the scientist Volker Roeber mentioned in the first link is working with us in

trying to see of that tsunami-type wave (called Infragravity Waves) can occur here in Puerto

Rico.

Figure 5 shows a schematic of the case in which the beach house is not reached by the storm surge, but

it is the waves riding on top of the storm surge that produce the inland flooding. That happened in

Havana, Cuba, during the passage of Hurricane Wilma (2005), in which the SWE did not overtop the

“Malecón”, but waves overtopping it, and their splash, did the flooding (see Figure 6 and

http://www.cubahurricanes.org/hurricane-wilma-info.php ). Again, this type of inland flooding is not

contemplated in the actual maps. Unless the SWE goes above the crown of the “Malecón”, and then the

flooding would be by the SWE and wave runup/overtoppig.

Storm surge computer models nowadays will compute the above three components (with only the static

part of the wave setup). But to include (static) wave setup, a wind wave’s model has to be coupled to an

ocean circulation model that takes care of the pressure and wind setups. At each computational time

step, once the wind and pressure setups are calculated with the circulation model this information is

supplied to the wave model (together with the wind speed and direction information) so that the wave

model can compute the waves, and henceforth, the wave setup. This wave setup is then fed back to the

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circulation model, which adds it to the pressure and wind setups (which changes the overall water

depths), and the process is started all over again by feeding the new water depths to the wave model

until some convergence criteria is reached.

To summarize, although wind waves are computed, and used, to

generate the maps shown here, they are only used to evaluate the

(static) wave setup that is added to the other two setups. The

additional runup and overtopping that is observed during an actual

hurricane is not included. So it is highly probable that we might be

underestimating the extent, and depth, of the coastal flooding (by just

seawater), and this underestimation might be by a factor of 2 or more.

To give an idea of the potential magnitude of what we are missing in

the present maps by not including wave runup/overtopping, Figures 7b,

found in the report shown in Figure 7a, show the contribution of wave

runup/overtopping to the coastal seawater flooding for Hurricane Hugo

(1989) as measured by the US Geological Survey.

The runup/ovetopping will be considered in another project which is

already underway.

Figure 5 – Schematic of the case where the SWE does not reach the crown of a coastal structure (like a “malecón”), but inland flooding still occurs due to wave action overtopping the crown of the structure.

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Figure 6 – Coastal flooding (seawater) in Havana, next to the “malecón”. Note the wave splashing against the seawall.

Figure 7a – USGS Hurricane Hugo Open-File Report 92-87.

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Figure 7b – Figure demonstrating the contribution of wave runup/overtopping to inland coastal seawater flooding in islands like Puerto Rico. (From USGS Hurricane Hugo Open-File Report 92-87)

CAVEATS:

Finally, before showing the maps, it is necessary to present some additional caveats that must be

understood in order to comprehend the limitations of the maps. It is important to highlight the caveats

involved in the preparation of hazard maps like these since it is important for the users to know what’s

missing, especially if it might lead to an underestimation of the hazard. These are independent of model

limitations and of input bathymetry and topography potential errors.

It should be emphasized that the following coastal flood maps show what is called the stillwater

elevations. This is what a tide gauge would measure, filtering the high-frequency (periods of,

say, 20 seconds or smaller) waves.

Related with the above caveat, the maps do not show the flooding due to wave runup (the high-

frequency waves propagating inland on top of the stillwater elevation and breaking nearshore,

and inland, like a bore or a sheet of seawater. It is known that wave runup can make a

significant contribution to coastal flooding by seawater, increasing even more the flooded areas

shown in the maps. In islands like Puerto Rico runup and overtopping can easily be the major

cause of coastal flooding by seawater.

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The MOMs and SuperMOM for each category show the potential flooding from a set of 61

different hurricanes of that given category. They do not show the potential flooding from any

particular hurricane. For that one has to go to the maps for each individual hurricane.

The effect of infragravity waves is not included. These are low-frequency (periods of a few

minutes) waves, some coastally-trapped, that can temporarily increase the stillwater elevations

when the wave crest is passing by. Where they occur they can be an important factor for

allowing high-frequency waves to penetrate deeper inland, and increase the overtopping, and

thus, inland flooding. If you want to see an extreme case of the effects of infragravity waves

during the passage of Hurricane Haiyan over the Philippines, go to

http://www.livescience.com/49201-haiyan-waves-moved-giant-boulders.html, 40 seconds into

the movie shown in that page. Presently we are trying to see the role they might play in Puerto

Rico. And that includes the use of the Boussinesq wave model BOSZ, created by Dr. Volker

Roeber (Tohoku University, Japan). This model has been able to simulate the tsunami-like pulses

of water seen in the video. The model is being run in our cluster at the High Performance

Computing Physical Oceanography Laboratory at the Department of Marine Sciences, UPRM.

Based on the above three bullets, these maps are expected to show the minimum areas

expected to be flooded by seawater.

No rainfall flooding, nor ponding due to rainfall, is included. Nor is the effect of flash floods

moving water downslope to the coast.

The stillwater elevations are given relative to Mean High Water. That is, it is assumed that the

storm surge occurs at high astronomical tide. In Puerto Rico this is not much of an issue since

the tidal range is small.

These maps show potentially floodable areas under the scenario of a given category hurricane

passing through the most critical trajectory for any given coastal site. That is why several

hurricanes are simulated in parallel tracks (see technical report), trying to be sure that all

locations along the coast suffer the consequences of the most dangerous track for that location.

Any different hurricane track than the critical track will tend to show, in general, smaller

flooding depths for that site.

The maps are based on the best available topographic and bathymetric data as obtained in the

early 2000’s, and used for tsunami flood mapping by NOAA (a section showing the tsunami

maps is in plans). The DEM resolution is 1/3 arc seconds (approximately 10 meters), and it tries

to be bare-earth. That is, vegetation and infrastructure have mostly been eliminated.

Information about the actual topographic roughness conditions at a given location is supplied by

the use of assigned Manning coefficients to each computational node (see technical report).

Since the topographic and bathymetric data was obtained by the use of the LiDAR technology, in

places with turbid waters the signal is not capable of reaching the bottom. As a consequence,

rivers are represented as an almost flat surface upriver from its river mouth. And the surface of

this lid lies 0.1 to 0.5 m above Mean High Water (it is dry land). The same happens in inland

water bodies like coastal lagoons (Lagunas San Jose and Torrecillas, part of the San Juan Bay

Estuary). Appendix 1 further discusses this issue in the technical report prepared for the funding

agencies.

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The dynamic interaction between river discharge and storm surge is not included. This could

increase the storm surge and serve as an obstacle for the river discharge, thus increasing the

river flooding.

The storm surge propagation upriver is not reliable due to the lack of riverine bathymetric data

which is replaced by a lid. It is not known what the consequences of this lid are.

Coastal morphological changes (due to bottom erosion by waves and currents) during the storm

are not included. Nor are any changes that have happened between the dates of topographic

and bathymetric acquisition and the present.

Land use information and sea bottom features that are included as a computational attributes,

and both necessary for friction parameterization, are based on data that might not be up to

date. It will be up to a year that an update of that information will be available.

Having made the caveats mentioned above, it is important to state that the combined models used to

prepare the maps (ADCIRC+SWAN; being ADCIRC – ADvance Circulation Model - a state-of-the-art ocean

circulation model; see http://adcirc.org/), and SWAN – Simulating Waves till the Nearshore – a state-of-

the-art spectral wave model; see http://swanmodel.sourceforge.net/) were validated by comparing

model results with time series of sea level elevations measured at several tide gauges, for several

hurricanes affecting Puerto Rico, and also validated with NOAA tidal predictions at many official tide

gauges all around the island, including the two island municipalities. This lends credibility to the flood

maps presented. As a matter of fact, ADCIRC was used by FEMA to prepare the present Flood Insurance

Rate Maps for the island. The Technical Report documents the statements above.

THE PUERTO RICO STORM SURGE ATLAS

There are several terabytes of results stored for further analysis. For now what we are making available

are the so-called SuperMOMs. A summary explanation follows. For more details please go to the

technical report (Storm Surge Modeling in Puerto Rico in Support of Emergency Response, Risk

Assessment, Coastal Planning and Climate Change Analysis-V10.pdf). Based on an analysis of historical

hurricanes it was determined to use four hurricane headings: 270° (exactly east to west), 290° (from the

southeast), 330° (from the south-southeast), and 60° (from the southwest). All these angles are relative

to true north, and measured in a clockwise sense. Figures 8, 9, 10, and 11 show the tracks.

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Figure 8 - Collection of tracks with a heading of 270° (clockwise from North). Fourteen tracks with a separation of 5 nm were found to be sufficient for this heading.

Figure 9 - Collection of tracks with a heading of 290° (clockwise from North). Nineteen tracks with a separation of 5 nm were found to be sufficient for this heading.

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Figure 10 - Collection of tracks with a heading of 330° (clockwise from North). Twenty eight tracks with a separation of 5 nm were found to be sufficient for this heading.

Figure 11 - Collection of tracks with a heading of 60° (clockwise from North). Twentyone tracks with a separation of 5 nm were found to be sufficient for this heading.These headings are not included in the SuperMOMs whose KMZ files are provided.

For a given heading, each one of the tracks outputs what is called a Maximum Envelope of Waters

(MEOW) that captures the highest storm surge elevations produced by that given track everywhere in

the computational domain, irrespective of when it occurred while the hurricane was passing by. For

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example, for the 290° heading we get fourteen MEOWs. Next we collect all the fourteen MOMs for that

heading and calculate the maximum of all the maximums, and this is called the Maximum of the

Maximums (MOM). So for a given heading, each track produces a MEOW, and the collection of all

MEOWs produces a MOM. Then we collect all the MOMs into a Maximum of the MOMs, which is called

a SuperMOM. This is done for each hurricane category (1 to 5). Therefore, each category produces a

SuperMOM, where we show the maximum storm surge elevation at each computational node

irrespective of track and heading. Later on, if time allows, we will make available the individual MOMs

for each heading, allowing for a more precise view of the effect of hurricane heading. But for now the

effect of all hurricane headings for a given hurricane category are put together into one result, the

SuperMOM for that category. And this is what we are presenting at the moment.

To summarize, we will present, for each hurricane category, a:

1. SuperMOM of the SWE, the storm surge elevation relative to Mean Sea Level (MSL),

2. SuperMOM of what we call the Local Water Depth (LWD - which is nothing else that the water

elevation relative to the local terrain elevation; in which we have subtracted the terrain

elevations from the elevations relative to MSL), and

3. SuperMOM of the Significant Wave Heights computed by the spectral wave model, SWAN.

Later on we will add the SuperMOMs of the Peak Wave Period, Tp, a very important parameter for

coastal structures design.

Since it was the desire of the PRCZMP to include sea level rise effects, all of the computer runs were

repeated by assuming right from the start that sea level had risen by +0.5 and +1.0 meters.

To distinguish amongst all of these options the names assigned to the output files will show something

like this:

Cat3_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz (for results for a category 3, under a SLR of +0.5 m).

Cat1_SLR_0_2_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz (for results for a category 1, under a SLR of +0.0 m).

etc.

IMPORTANT: The five SuperMOMs presented for each hurricane category do not include the storm

surges due to the 60° heading (from southwest to northeast; see Figure 11). In the historical record for

Puerto Rico there has never been a landfalling hurricane anywhere along the west coast. There have

been several tracks had that heading, but stayed relatively away from the island and only wind wave

effects were felt. Among the latest are (Wrong way) Lenny, and Omar. But, just in case this changes, it

was decided to include a set of runs from the southeast to the northeast so that emergency managers

may have an idea of what to expect, especially along the west coast (see Figure 11). The old storm surge

atlas that this one replaces did consider all the headings put together, resulting in large storm surge

elevations along the west coast of the island, where they made landfall. The results for these southwest

to northeast tracks will be added later on. Another thing that will be added later if requested, and

funding appears, is the KMZs for each individual hurricane track simulated. And, for each hurricane

category, the MOMs for each individual group of hurricane headings.

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THE MAPS

We will first show a birds-eye view of the resulting maps. But only for the Local Water Depth versions

(that is, shown is the flooding inland – flood depth, or inundation depth). For more details than the ones

shown in the maps below one should use the kmz version of the maps whose links are given below so

that you can download them. These kmz are heavy, and patience is needed to let them load into Google

Earth.

At the top of each figure we show the metadata that generated the map. The information supplied is

the following (for more details see the technical report):

dP = hurricane central pressure (in mb) SLR = assumed Sea Level Rise (m) HEADINGS = hurricane heading (degrees from North) – 270°, 290°, 330° means that we are showing the

maximum from all those three headings Vf = hurricane (forward) translation speed (knots) RMW = Radius of Maximum Winds (nautical miles) Vmax = maximum wind speed obtained by the internal wind model (knots) Inundation Depth = Inundation relative to the local terrain elevation (m)

CATEGORY 1: SLR 0.0 M

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CATEGORY 1: SLR 0.5 M

CATEGORY 1: SLR 1.0 M

CATEGORY 2: SLR 0.0 M

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CATEGORY 2: SLR 0.5 M

CATEGORY 2: SLR 1.0 M

CATEGORY 3: SLR 0.0 M

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CATEGORY 3: SLR 0.5 M

CATEGORY 3: SLR 1.0 M

CATEGORY 4: SLR 0.0 M

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CATEGORY 4: SLR 0.5 M

CATEGORY 4: SLR 1.0 M

CATEGORY 5: SLR 0.0 M

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CATEGORY 5: SLR 0.5 M

CATEGORY 5: SLR 1.0 M

Next we give the links to the kmz version of the maps above. For each hurricane category (and three sea

level elevations) we supply:

LWD: maps showing just the Maximum of the Maximums (SuperMOMs) of the inland inundation (Local

Water Depth), and they show the water depth in meters

Storm_Surge: maps showing the Maximum of the Maximums (SuperMOMs) of the Storm Surge

elevation relative to MSL, in meters

Hs: maps showing the spatial distribution of the Maximum of the Maximums (SuperMOMs) of the

Significant Wave Height (Hs)

A NOTE OF CAUTION ON THE SIGNIFICANT WAVE HEIGHT MAPS. The SWAN spectral wave model has

been validated many times, and is widely used worldwide. In this study we also tried to validate the

model with the few offshore wave buoys available that measured Hs associated with some hurricanes.

The model has tens of adjustable parameters that the researcher can vary in order to fine tune the

model and, thus, improve model results. Also, wave hindcasting is very sensitive to the wind model

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used. In this case the internal wind vortex model that ADCIRC has. In this study, the SWAN adjustable

parameters were kept in their default values. No attempt was made to adjust them in order to obtain

best fits.

KMZ Contours Map for: Category 1: Elevations 0m, 0.5m & 1.0m

Cat1_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat1_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat1_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat1_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat1_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat1_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat1_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

Cat1_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

Cat1_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

KMZ Contours Map for: Category 2: Elevations 0m, 0.5m & 1.0m

Cat2_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat2_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat2_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat2_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat2_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat2_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat2_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

Cat2_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

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Cat2_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

KMZ Contours Map for: Category 3: Elevations 0m, 0.5m & 1.0m

Cat3_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat1_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat3_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat3_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat3_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat3_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat3_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

Cat3_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

Cat3_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

KMZ Contours Map for: Category 4: Elevations 0m, 0.5m & 1.0m

Cat4_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat4_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat4_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat4_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat4_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat4_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat4_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

Cat4_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

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Cat4_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

KMZ Contours Map for: Category 5: Elevations 0m, 0.5m & 1.0m

Cat5_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat5_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat5_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_LWD_contours_png.kmz

Cat5_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat5_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat5_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_StormSurge_contours_png.kmz

Cat5_SLR_0_0_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

Cat5_SLR_0_5_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz

Ca5_SLR_1_0_Lon_Lat_Hs_contours_png.kmz