A Florida county has released new storm surge maps, and they’re giving locals a more precise idea of their risks of being hit by the storm surge associated with a hurricane. Tampa Bay Online has the whole story. As the article reports, Hillsborough County has based the maps on revised models from the National Hurricane […]
Tag Archives | hazard identification
New England Gets $1.4M for Better Coastal Flood Maps
Posted on April 29, 2010
A consortium of New England groups has received a $1.4 million grant to collect high-resolution topographical data for greatly improved flood risk maps, according to a press release from the University of New Hampshire. The project will collect data from New York City to Eastport, Maine. This is potentially very good news for all coastal […]
High Tech (and generally free) Tools for Disaster Preparation
Posted on April 15, 2010
Mashable has written a short article outlining some of the many ways that people can take advantage of the technology they already own (computers, smart-phones, etc) to help prepare themselves for natural disasters. Some of the ideas: Using Google My Maps to create evacuation maps (see video below for an intro on how to do […]
Eight Hurricanes, Fifteen Tropical Storms for 2010 Forecasters Say
Posted on April 7, 2010
The leading storm forecasting team at Colorado State University is predicting eight hurricanes and fifteen tropical storms for this year’s hurricane season. “While patterns may change before the start of the hurricane season, we believe current conditions warrant concern for an above-average season,” researcher William Gray said. Not good news. “U.S. forecaster sees increased 2010 […]
When Are My New Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) Going to be Ready?
Posted on April 2, 2010
FEMA has released a list of all communities scheduled to have new Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) go active during 2010. WARNING: the list isn’t particularly reader-friendly. I’d recommend downloading it, then doing a search for the name of your community in the document. If it appears, look at the top of the table on […]
How Does Coastal Massachusetts's Risk Compare to Our Neighbors?
Posted on March 29, 2010
Great interactive map from the NOAA Coastal Services Center quickly tells you for any state: Population growth of the Coastal Flood Hazard Area (CFA) Percentage of people living in the CFA who are: Living below the poverty line Over 65 years old What percentage of the state’s total land area is within the Coastal Flood […]
New FIRMs Tested in Massachusetts
Posted on March 22, 2010
The Boston Globe has an interesting article on how the updated National Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) did in last week’s floods there. In a word: well. This wasn’t good news to many who were sure the the updates, which had designated their properties as high flood risk, were wrong. Some were even fighting to […]
National Hurricane Center Announces Changes
Posted on March 4, 2010
Straight from the National Hurricane Center press-release: Product Changes for the 2010 Hurricane Season’s Effective May 15, the National Hurricane Center will implement important changes in some of its text and graphical products. It will also make some additions to its Web site and experimental products. This is part of a continuing effort at the […]
NOAA Improves Forecasts for Coastal Flood Impacts
Posted on February 23, 2010
The National Weather Service has created a new way to help coastal decision makers better project damage from coastal flooding through an experimental forecast technique they’re calling the “Coastal Flood Nomogram”. Unlike some other models which rely solely on predicted damage from still water, the Coastal Flood Nomogram considers the combined effects of storm tides […]
Hurricane Center Takes Storm Surge Out of Intensity Categories
Posted on February 17, 2010
NOAA’s National Weather Service has just announced that it will use a new hurricane scale this season called the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. The new scale keeps the same wind speed ranges as the original Saffir-Simpson Scale for each of the five hurricane categories, but no longer ties specific storm surge and flooding effects to […]