Storm Surge Maximum Envelope of Water (MEOW)

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Contents:

1. Overview
2. Product Description
3. Availability
4. Examples

2. Product Description

This is an composite product representing the maximum height of storm surge water in a given basin grid cell using hypothetical storms run with the same:

• Category (intensity)
• Forward speed
• Storm trajectory
• Initial tide level

Internally a number of parallel SLOSH runs with same intensity, forward speed, storm trajectory, and initial tide level are performed for the basin. The only difference in runs is that each is conducted at some distance to the left or right of the main track (typically at the center of the grid). Each component run computes a storm surge value for each grid cell. For example, five parallel runs may yield storm surge values of 4.1, 7.1, 5.3, 6.3, and 3.8 feet. In this case, the MEOW for the cell is 7.1 ft. It is unknown (to the user) which track generated the MEOW for a particular cell, so it is entirely possible that the MEOW values for adjacent cells may have come from different runs. MEOWs are used to incorporate the uncertainties associated with a given forecast and help eliminate the possibility that a critical storm track will be missed in which extreme storm surge values are generated. The results are typically generated from several thousand SLOSH runs for each basin. Over 80 MEOWs have been generated for some basins. This product provides useful information aiding in hurricane evacuation planning.

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