[AFPhys]

“The surge is ahead of the storm, so it doesn’t matter how intense the storm is when it hits land. What matters is how strong the storm is hours before it hits land.”

RIGHT... there’s probably some kind of time-decaying integral taking into account pressure and area that should be applied ... That is probably published somewhere in the literature.

[Moose4]

Surge maps are on the NWS’s Ike page, down below the forecast track:

http://www.noaawatch.gov/2008/ike.php

The surge maps up there now are interesting. Galveston Island gets between 10 (west end) and 15 (east end) feet. 17-19 feet up the bay. The worst of it is actually showing EAST of Port Arthur, up to 29.4 feet. Cameron Parish, LA, 15 feet. Calcasieu Parish, LA, 14 feet (and they’re inland of Cameron). New Orleans, 7 feet. Vermillion, 10 feet.

This thing is a bloody monster. Has there ever been a hurricane that caused this much coastal surge over this wide an area?

}:-)4

[Justa]

I believe there are actually two surges. One is the wind surge kicked up by the strong winds pushing water ahead of it and the second is the storm surge from water from the surrounding area rising up inside the eye due to the low pressure. With a large wind surge coming up against the coast outflow will be impaired. Then when the storm surge reaches it will be on top of the existing wind surge.

I.e., the models may actually be under-predicting the landfall storm surge at this point due to the large wind surge already ahead of it [no I couldn't have just said that].