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The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Region III office, has initiated a study to update the coastal storm surge elevations within the states of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, including the Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake Bay (including its tributaries), and the Delaware Bay. This effort is one of the most extensive coastal storm surge analyses to date, encompassing coastal floodplains in three states and including the largest estuary in the world. The study will replace outdated coastal storm surge stillwater elevations for all Flood Insurance Studies in the study area, and serve as the basis for new coastal hazard analyses and ultimately updated Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs). Study efforts were initiated in August of 2008, and were concluded in 2013. The storm surge study utilized the ADvanced CIRCulation Model for Oceanic, Coastal, and Estuarine Waters (ADCIRC) for simulation of two-dimensional hydraulics. ADCIRC was coupled with two-dimensional wave models to calculate the combined effects of surge and wind-induced waves. A seamless modeling grid was developed to support the storm surge modeling efforts. This report is the fifth and final in a series for the project. It provides a detailed overview of the extratropical and tropical storm statistical analyses, treatment of tidal influences, and final water level recurrence interval results. Furthermore, the similarities and differences between the new results and earlier study findings are explored., The original document contains color images.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, Region III office, has initiated a study to update the coastal storm surge elevations within the states of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, and the District of Columbia including the Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake Bay including its tributaries, and the Delaware Bay. This effort is one of the most extensive coastal storm surge analyses to date, encompassing coastal floodplains in three states and including the largest estuary in the world. The study will replace outdated coastal storm surge stillwater elevations for all Flood Insurance Studies in the study area, and serve as the basis for new coastal hazard analysis and ultimately updated Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs). The end-to-end storm surge modeling system includes the Advanced Circulation Model for Oceanic, Coastal and Estuarine Waters (ADCIRC) for simulation of two-dimensional hydrodynamics. ADCIRC was dynamically coupled to the unstructured numerical wave model Simulating WAves Nearshore (unSWAN) to calculate the contribution of waves to total storm surge. The modeling system validation included a comprehensive tidal calibration followed by an assessment using carefully reconstructed wind and pressure fields from three major flood events for the Region III domain: Hurricane Isabel, Hurricane Ernesto, and Extratropical Storm Ida. Model skill was accessed by quantitative comparison of model output to wind, wave, water level, and high water mark observations. Prior reports covered Submittal 1 requirements by providing details on the bathymetric/topographic digital environmental model (Report 1.1), description of the computational system (Report 1.2), and documenting the selection process for storms used in the study (Report 1.3). This report (2.0) completes the required Submittal 2 documentation by providing details of the modeling system calibration and performance., Sponsored in part by USACE. Prepared in cooperation with Renaissance Computing Institute, Chapel Hill, NC and ARCADIS, Boulder, CO.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Region III office, has initiated a study to update the coastal storm surge elevations within the states of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, and the District of Columbia. The area includes the Atlantic Ocean, the Chesapeake Bay, including its tributaries, and the Delaware Bay. This effort is one of the most extensive coastal storm surge analyses to date, encompassing coastal floodplains in three states and including the largest estuary in the world. The study will replace outdated coastal storm surge stillwater elevations for all Flood Insurance Studies in the study area, and serve as the basis for new coastal hazard analysis and ultimately updated Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs). Study efforts were initiated in August of 2008, and are expected to conclude in 2012. The storm surge study considers both tropical storms and extratropical cyclones for determination of return period storm surge elevations. The historical record of events in the region has been used to reconstruct wind and pressure fields for significant extratropical cyclone events and to develop a synthetic suite of tropical storm tracks and associated parameters to drive the models. This will support the statistical analysis of storm surge return period elevations. This report, the third of three reports comprising the required Submittal 1 documentation, describes development of the wind and pressure fields required for FEMA Region III storm surge modeling., The original document contains color images.

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The Federal Emergency Management Agency, Region III office, has initiated a study to update the coastal storm surge elevations within the states of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, and the District of Columbia including the Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, and the Delaware Bay. This effort is one of the most extensive coastal storm surge analyses to date, encompassing coastal floodplains in three states and including the largest estuary in the world. The study will replace outdated coastal storm surge stillwater elevations for all Flood Insurance Studies in the study area, and serve as the basis for new coastal hazard analysis and ultimately updated Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs). Study efforts were initiated in August of 2008, and are expected to conclude in 2010. The storm surge study will utilize the Advanced Circulation Model for Oceanic, Coastal and Estuarine Waters (ADCIRC) for simulation of 2-dimensional hydraulics. ADCIRC will be coupled with 2-dimensional wave models to calculate the combined effects of surge and wind-induced waves. A seamless modeling grid was developed to support the storm surge modeling efforts. This report, the first of three reports comprising the required Submittal 1 documentation, provides a detailed overview of the construction of the Digital Elevation Model, modeling mesh, and the development of an integrated computational system for FEMA Region III storm surge modeling., The original document contains color images.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, Region III office, has initiated a study to update the coastal storm surge elevations within the states of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, and the District of Columbia including the Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake Bay including its tributaries, and the Delaware Bay. This effort is one of the most extensive coastal storm surge analyses to date, encompassing coastal floodplains in three states and including the largest estuary in the world. The study will replace outdated coastal storm surge stillwater elevations for all Flood Insurance Studies in the study area, and serve as the basis for new coastal hazard analysis and ultimately updated Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs). Study efforts were initiated in August of 2008, and are expected to conclude in 2011. The storm surge study will utilize the Advanced Circulation Model for Oceanic, Coastal and Estuarine Waters (ADCIRC) for simulation of 2-dimensional hydraulics. ADCIRC will be coupled with 2-dimensional wave models to calculate the combined effects of surge and wind-induced waves. A seamless modeling grid was developed to support the storm surge modeling efforts. This report, the second of three reports comprising the required Submittal 1 documentation, provides a detailed overview of the construction of the modeling mesh and the development of an integrated computational system for FEMA Region III storm surge modeling., The original document contains color images.

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 112 (2007): C05022, doi:10.1029/2006JC003903., A set of model simulations are used to determine the principal forcing mechanisms that resulted in anomalously cold water in the South Atlantic Bight (SAB) in the summer of 2003. Updated mass field and elevation boundary conditions from basin-scale Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) simulations are compared to climatological forcing to provide offshore and upstream influences in a one-way nesting sense. Model skill is evaluated by comparing model results with observations of velocity, water level, and surface and bottom temperature. Inclusion of realistic atmospheric forcing, river discharge, and improved model dynamics produced good skill on the inner shelf and midshelf. The intrusion of cold water onto the shelf occurred predominantly along the shelf-break associated with onshore flow in the southern part of the domain north of Cape Canaveral (29° to 31.5°). The atmospheric forcing (anomalously strong and persistent upwelling-favorable winds) was the principal mechanism driving the cold event. Elevated river discharge increased the level of stratification across the inner shelf and midshelf and contributed to additional input of cold water into the shelf. The resulting pool of anomalously cold water constituted more than 50% of the water on the shelf in late July and early August. The excess nutrient flux onto the shelf associated with the upwelling was approximated using published nitrate-temperature proxies, suggesting increased primary production during the summer over most of the SAB shelf., The preparation of this paper was primarily supported by the Southeast Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System (SEACOOS) and the South Atlantic Bight Limited Area Model (SABLAM). SEACOOS is a collaborative, regional program sponsored by the Office of Naval Research under award N00014-02-1-0972 and managed by the University of North Carolina-General Administration. SABLAM was sponsored by the National Ocean Partnership Program (award NAG 13-00041). Data from ship surveys were collected and processed with the support from NSF grant OCE-0099167 (J. R. Nelson), NSF grant OCE-9982133 (J. O. Blanton, SkIO), NASA grant NAG-10557 (J. R. Nelson), and SEACOOS. NOAA NDBC buoy data and NOS coastal water level records were obtained through NOAA-supported data archives and web portals. Moored instrument data from the Carolina Coastal Ocean Observation and Prediction System (Caro-COOPS) were acquired from the system’s website (http://www.carocoops.org). Caro-COOPS is sponsored by NOAA grant NA16RP2543.