The Use of a Statistical Model of Storm Surge as a Bias Correction for Dynamical Surge Models and its Applicability along the U.S. East Coast

The present study extends the applicability of a statistical model for prediction of storm surge originally developed for The Battery, NY in two ways: I. the statistical model is used as a bias correction for operationally produced dynamical surge forecasts, and II. the statistical model is applied to the region of the east coast of the U.S. susceptible to winter extratropical storms. The statistical prediction is based on a regression relation between the storm maximum storm surge and the storm composite significant wave height predicted ata nearby location. The use of the statistical surge prediction as an alternative bias correction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) operational storm surge forecasts is shown here to be statistically equivalent to the existing bias correction technique and potentially applicable for much longer forecast lead times as well as for storm surge climate prediction. Applying the statistical model to locations along the east coast shows that the regression relation can be trained with data from tide gauge measurements and near-shore buoys along the coast from North Carolina to Maine, and that it provides accurate estimates of storm surge.