Storm Surge Hindcasting of Typhoon Maemi in Masan Bay, Korea

Abstract

Typhoon Maemi crossed the south coast of Korea at 21LST, September 12, 2003, where its storm surge accompanied by high waves and astronomical high tide induced the most severe coastal disaster in Korea. In particular, Masan City facing Masan Bay had the worst damages from the storm surge flooding with the maximum surge height of 230 cm recorded at Masan Port. In order to obtain the design surge heights for the coastal structures in Masan City, a hindcasting study of storm surge for Typhoon Maemi was conducted using a fine-scale regional surge model which was connected to the larger scale surge models by a nested grid system. The sea surface pressure and wind fields were computed by a primitive vortex wind model to obtain the input data for the storm surge model. The hindcasted surge heights were compared with the observed surges at Masan Port as well as at the major tide stations on the south coast of Korea. The hindcasted surges were in a good agreement with the observed surges for both the maximum heights and the occurrence times.