Mark E. Hope

Hurricane Gustav (2008) Waves and Storm Surge: Hindcast, Synoptic Analysis, and Validation in Southern Louisiana

AbstractHurricane Gustav (2008) made landfall in southern Louisiana on 1 September 2008 with its eye never closer than 75 km to New Orleans, but its waves and storm surge threatened to flood the city. Easterly tropical-storm-strength winds impacted the region east of the Mississippi River for 12–15 h, allowing for early surge to develop up to 3.5 m there and enter the river and the city’s navigation canals. During landfall, winds shifted from easterly to southerly, resulting in late surge development and propagation over more than 70 km of marshes on the river’s west bank, over more than 40 km of Caernarvon marsh on the east bank, and into Lake Pontchartrain to the north. Wind waves with estimated significant heights of 15 m developed in the deep Gulf of Mexico but were reduced in size once they reached the continental shelf. The barrier islands further dissipated the waves, and locally generated seas existed behind these effective breaking zones.The hardening and innovative deployment of gauges since Hur...

Rapid Assessment of Wave and Surge Risk during Landfalling Hurricanes: Probabilistic Approach

AbstractA probabilistic framework is presented for evaluation of hurricane wave and surge risk with particular emphasis on real-time automated estimation for hurricanes approaching landfall. This framework has two fundamental components. The first is the development of a surrogate model for the rapid evaluation of hurricane waves, water levels, and run-up based on a small number of parameters describing each hurricane: hurricane landfall location and heading, central pressure, forward speed, and radius of maximum winds. This surrogate model is developed using a response surface methodology fed by information from hundreds of precomputed, high-resolution Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN) + Advanced Circulation Model for Oceanic, Coastal and Estuarine Waters (ADCIRC) and One-Dimensional Boussinesq Model (BOUSS-1D) runs. For a specific set of hurricane parameters (i.e., a specific landfalling hurricane), the surrogate model is able to evaluate the maximum wave height, water level, and run-up during the storm...

A Case Study of Nearshore Drag Coefficient Behavior during Hurricane Ike (2008)

AbstractOver the past decade, numerous field campaigns and laboratory experiments have examined air–sea momentum exchange in the deep ocean. These studies have changed the understanding of drag coefficient behavior in hurricane force winds, with a general consensus that a limiting value is reached. Near the shore, wave conditions are markedly different than in deep water because of wave shoaling and breaking processes, but only very limited data exist to assess drag coefficient behavior. Yet, knowledge of the wind stress in this region is critical for storm surge forecasting, evaluating the low-level wind field across the coastal transition zone, and informing the wind load standard along the hurricane-prone coastline. During Hurricane Ike (2008), a Texas Tech University StickNet platform obtained wind measurements in marine exposure with a fetch across the Houston ship channel. These data were used to estimate drag coefficient dependence on wind speed. Wave conditions in the ship channel and surge level ...