Hurricane Ike making landfall near Galveston, Texas

By Deltares Institute for Delta Technology http://www.deltares.nl

This animation shows predicted wind vectors and surge levels as Hurricane Ike makes landfall on September 13, 0900 UTC near Galveston, Texas.

The model predicts surge levels of more than 7 metres above mean sea level along the coast east of Galveston.

The hurricane path, maximum wind speeds and central pressure drop are based on Hurricane Ike forecast number 45 of the National Hurricane Centre (0900 UTC Fri Sep 12 2008). To synthesize the hurricane, the in-house Wind Enhanced Scheme (WES) was used. The WES scheme was originally developed by the UK Meteorological Office based on Hollands model (Holland, 1975).

The hydrodynamic model has been set up with our Delft3D system running in 2D mode. The hurricane track used in this model was downloaded from http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/ .

The model resolution is 2 km and the bathymetry and land height originates from one minute GEBCO gridded data (http://www.gebco.net/data_and_products/gridded_bathymetry_data/) .

It must be noted that both the surge levels and wind velocities in the animation should only be viewed as indicative. Many geographical features (such as islands and tidal inlets) are not resolved accurately by the model due to the relatively large grid spacing. Furthermore, the actual path of Hurricane Ike may still deviate significantly from the path that was used in our prediction. Rainfall and wave induced set-up are not included in this simulation.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• hurricane
• ike
• storm
• surge
• animation
• galveston
• texas
• delft3d
• simulation

[keyehaw]

Hoi Maarten -

A 9m surge from Ike is way, way high. That would have affected the buildings on Bolivar Peninsula that survived the surge.

[MaartenDeltares]

The surge level was definitely overpredicted by the model. The prediction was however made some 24 hours before landfall. I believe that Ike lost quite a bit of strength (unexpectedly) just before hitting Galveston. Furthermore, due to the large grid spacing of the model, features like Bolivar Peninsula were not resolved accurately. This may also have led to the overprediction.

[keyehaw]

Maarten -

Quite possibly. I went there three weeks after Ike and a surprising number of houses seemed to still be there.

See you again at a conference sometime :)

[ringsofwater]

hold on,,,

[sk8baker1]

its going through my town right now

[by2004]

idiots who stayed behind: 'you may face certain death" !!!! now you're putting ohers at risk to come save your ass. stupid rednecks.