Evaluation of Numerical Storm Surge Models.

Federal services that minimize loss of life and property due to tropical hurricanes include forecasts and flood warnings. Because of the different concerns of these agencies their models have evolved in different ways and are applied with different input data, and apparent disparities have appeared. Evaluation was accomplished by having each modeling group separately exercise its models for selected past events and by comparing the model outputs with each other and with observed water elevations. Open-coast storm surge models were evaluated, then inland flooding models were evaluated using as input one of the open-coast model results. Each model tested included features that offered important advantages. Further, the models were continually evolving to include improved descriptions of the land and waters and of storms. No one models predictions consistently gave better comparisons with observed data, however and it is unlikely that one will be clearly better than the others for Corps purposes.