Hindcasting of Storm Surge at Southeast Coast by Typhoon Maemi

Abstract

Typhoon Maemi landed on the southeast coast of Korea and caused a severe storm surge in Jinhae Bay and Masan Bay. The tide gage in Masan Port recorded the storm surge of a maximum of more than 2m and the area of more than 700m from the Seo Hang Wharf was flooded by the storm surge. They had not met such an extremely severe storm surge since the opening of the port. Then storm surge was hindcasted with a numerical model. The typhoon pressure was approximated by Myers' empirical model and super gradient wind around the typhoon eye wall was considered in the wind estimation. The land topography surrounding Jinhae Bay and Masan Bay is so complex that the computed wind field was modified with the 3D-MASCON model. The motion of seawater due to the atmospheric forces was simulated using a one-layer model based on non-linear long wave approximation. The Janssen's wave age dependent drag coefficient on the sea surface was calculated in the wave prediction model WAM cycle 4 and the coefficient was inputted to the storm surge model. The result shows that the storm surge hindcasted by the numerical model was in good agreement with the observed one.