Joint Distributions of Hurricane Wind and Storm Surge for the City of Charleston in South Carolina

Abstract

Major coastal cities, which have large populations and economies, easily suffer from the losses due to hurricane wind and storm surge hazards. Although current design codes consider the joint occurrence of high wind and surge, information on site specific joint distributions of hurricane wind and storm surge along the U.S. Eastern Coast and Gulf of Mexico is still sparse and limited. In this paper, joint probability distributions of combined hurricane wind and storm surge for the City of Charleston, SC is developed. A stochastic hurricane model was used to simulate 5,000 years of synthetic hurricanes. The simulated hurricanes were inputted into the ADCIRC (Advanced Circulation) surge prediction model to compute the surge heights at selected locations. The calculated peak wind speeds and surge heights were employed to generate the joint probability distributions at each location. These joint distributions developed can be used in a multi-hazard design or risk assessment framework to consider the combined effects of hurricane wind and storm surge hazards.