Understanding the risk posed by the extreme storm events and accurate assessment of the flood risk is crucial for the successful management of the coastal communities by means of increasing the resiliency. There are only few available tide gauge, buoy and storm sensor data in the Long Island Sound to project the extreme sea level statistics using the observed records available to accurately determine the level of risk along the Connecticut coastline. In this work, we reproduced the highest 44 storms between 1950-2018 using a coupled circulation and wave model. The modeled events are fit to probability distribution to statistically estimate the annual exceedance probabilities and return periods for expected storms. For detailed information about the approach and the results, please click here. The results presented here are to highlight the storm surge water levels and significant wave heights which may contribute to a better understanding of extreme storms and guide decision makers.

Data Description and Usage

The modeled data has been created using the VDatum (NAVD88) and bathymetric data. Using the toggle down bar, please select the town that you would like to see the return interval results. The viewer will show the location of records, the specific return interval results. The probability of the storm (or return period) are presented with the corresponding water level and significant wave height in feet. The 20%, 10%, 3.33%, 2%, and 1% annual exceedance probability represents 5, 10, 30, 50 and 100-year return period elevations, respectively. If the user wants to reach a specific or all the return periods or frequency of the storm records, please click here. Note that the higher probability has shorter return period. For instance, 100-year return period storm has low probability (1%), whereas 10-year return period has higher probability (10%)