Building a Storm Surge Forecasting System that Saves Lives

ASGS, A Real-Time Operational Framework

Authors

  • Brett Estrade Author

Keywords:

perl, openmp, dbscan, datascience, clustering

Abstract

The ADCIRC Surge Guidance System (ASGS), first discussed formally in 2008, is a portable real-time operational storm surge forecasting framework. It continues to be forged and honed with each passing Atlantic hurricane seasons since 2008. ASGS has been used to deliver critical, time sensitive information to emergency managers on federal, state, and local levels in Louisiana, Texas, and North Carolina and within groups such FEMA, NOAA, and DHS. Over these years it has saved millions of dollars in time, property, and emergency assets. It has also likely saved many lives1. This paper discusses its origins as a collaboration between LSU and UNC in the wake of interest in such systems after Hurricane Katrina (2005), to its first real test during Hurricane Gustav2 (2008, path shown in Figure 5), and up to the modern day. ASGS has been used successfully to assist the community since then. This paper also discusses the technical aspects of the system: the essential core of the system, the ADCIRC finite element coast ocean model; how the user experience has been tailored for real-time operations, and the technical decisions that have been made leading directly to its success as a robust and adaptable framework for operational use. Most relevant for the intended audience is that is shown, i how using Perl, Bash shell scripting, and standard Unix tools has made all of this possible. This paper is organized such that is describes the need for real-time, accurate storm surge guidance and an overview of what ADCIRC requires to run (Section 2), an overview of what is generally needed for automating ADCIRC in Section 3; and finally the remainder of the paper discusses how ASGS accomplishes this and the critical role that open source technologies play (Sections 4, 5, particularly Section 5.4 for Perl).

Published

11/17/2024