Numerical Simulations of Myanmar Cyclone Nargis and the Associated Storm Surge Part I: Forecast Experiment with a Nonhydrostatic Model and Simulation of Storm Surge

Abstract

Numerical simulations of the 2008 Myanmar cyclone Nargis and the associated storm surge were conducted using the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) Nonhydrostatic Model (NHM) and the Princeton Ocean Model (POM). Although the JMA operational global analysis (GA) and the global spectral model (GSM) forecast underestimated Nargis’ intensity, downscale experiments by NHM with a horizontal resolution of 10 km using GA and GSM forecast data reproduced the development of Nargis more properly.Sensitivity experiments to study the effects of ice phase, sea surface temperature (SST), and horizontal resolutions to Nargis’ rapid development were conducted. In a warm rain experiment, Nargis developed earlier and the eye radius became larger. It was shown that a high SST anomaly preexistent in the Bay of Bengal led to the rapid intensification of the cyclone, and that SST at least warmer than 29°C was necessary for the development seen in the experiment. In a simulation with a horizontal resolution of 5 km, the cyclone exhibited more distinct development and attained a center pressure of 968 hPa.Numerical experiments on the storm surge were performed with POM whose horizontal resolution is 3.5 km. An experiment with POM using GSM forecast data could not reproduce the storm surge, while a simulation using NHM forecast data predicted a rise in the sea surface level by over 3 m. A southerly sub-surface current driven by strong surface winds of the cyclone caused a storm surge in the river mouths in southern Myanmar facing the Andaman Sea.Our results demonstrate that the storm surge produced by Nargis was predictable two days before landfall by a downscale forecast with a mesoscale model using accessible operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) data and application of an ocean model.