The dominant and pervading notion is that storm surges are like tsunamis. This means that many still think they are a wall of water of sorts. In truth, storm surges are, as the name implies, caused by strong and prolonged winds of a hurricane or typhoon battering the shore. In this sense, it’s better to call them domes of waves that form as the ocean or sea is pushed onto land.
These high-water formations essentially translate to the raising of the ocean, coming in with the normal inflow of tides. Hurricanes are devastating enough, but residents of near-ocean areas should be extremely wary not just of the high winds that can uproot trees and houses, but the flow of ocean water inland that may accompany the most severe of such storms. For example, it’s the storm surge and its accompanying water that killed nine out of 10 people when Hurricane Florence hit the U.S.
Studies done by meteorologists on hurricanes that have formed on U.S. waters between 1963 and 2012 show an alarming statistic: a whopping 49 percent of hurricane-related deaths in the country soil is a result of storm surges. Only 27 percent of the loss of lives was due to rain, eight percent from wind, and three percent from tornadoes, according to the National Hurricane Center.
One of the most destructive storm surges occurred in the Philippines during the landing of Typhoon Haiyan in the southern city of Tacloban in 2013. Not only was Haiyan among the strongest storms ever recorded— it is by far the deadliest to have hit the typhoon-prone nation, killing at least 6,300 people mostly due to drowning brought about by heaps of ocean water poured into the highly unprepared city.
Jim Byrne is a weatherman and a consultant for the program “So You Think You’d Survive” under the Weather Channel. He and former chief meteorologist for KCOY CBS-12. He took up meteorology and journalism at San Jose State University. Visit this Youtube channel for some of Jim’s reports.
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| Image source: wlos.com |
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Image source: science.howstuffworks.com
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Studies done by meteorologists on hurricanes that have formed on U.S. waters between 1963 and 2012 show an alarming statistic: a whopping 49 percent of hurricane-related deaths in the country soil is a result of storm surges. Only 27 percent of the loss of lives was due to rain, eight percent from wind, and three percent from tornadoes, according to the National Hurricane Center.
One of the most destructive storm surges occurred in the Philippines during the landing of Typhoon Haiyan in the southern city of Tacloban in 2013. Not only was Haiyan among the strongest storms ever recorded— it is by far the deadliest to have hit the typhoon-prone nation, killing at least 6,300 people mostly due to drowning brought about by heaps of ocean water poured into the highly unprepared city.
Jim Byrne is a weatherman and a consultant for the program “So You Think You’d Survive” under the Weather Channel. He and former chief meteorologist for KCOY CBS-12. He took up meteorology and journalism at San Jose State University. Visit this Youtube channel for some of Jim’s reports.
