Tropical cyclone rainbands can trigger meteotsunamis

Abstract

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Shi, L., Olabarrieta, M., Nolan, D. S., & Warner, J. C. Tropical cyclone rainbands can trigger meteotsunamis. Nature Communications, 11(1), (2020): 678, doi:10.1038/s41467-020-14423-9.Tropical cyclones are one of the most destructive natural hazards and much of the damage and casualties they cause are flood-related. Accurate characterization and prediction of total water levels during extreme storms is necessary to minimize coastal impacts. While meteotsunamis are known to influence water levels and to produce severe consequences, their impacts during tropical cyclones are underappreciated. This study demonstrates that meteotsunami waves commonly occur during tropical cyclones, and that they can contribute significantly to total water levels. We use an idealized coupled ocean–atmosphere–wave numerical model to analyze tropical cyclone-induced meteotsunami generation and propagation mechanisms. We show that the most extreme meteotsunami events are triggered by inherent features of the structure of tropical cyclones: inner and outer spiral rainbands. While outer distant spiral rainbands produce single-peak meteotsunami waves, inner spiral rainbands trigger longer lasting wave trains on the front side of the tropical cyclones.We thank all the developers of COAWST, ROMS, WRF, and SWAN models. D.N. was supported by NSF grant AGS-1654831. We would like to thank Dr. K. Bagamian for her editorial and writing suggestions. We would like to thank Dr. A. Aretxabaleta for the internal US Geological Survey internal revision and suggestions