Storm surge was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result April 19, 2007 Good article nominee Listed June 13, 2008 Good article reassessment Kept May 8, 2023 Good article reassessment Delisted
Current status: Delisted good article

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The contents of the Extratropical storm surge page were merged into Storm surge on 2014-03-14. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.

"Nine out of ten people who die in hurricanes are killed by storm surge."

In the US, only 1% are killed by storm surge (in modern times). 59% die in inland freshwater flooding. I'd imagine it's similar in the rest of the Atlantic, as the major killers of the last few decades (eg: Mitch) have done so through inland flooding and associated mudslides. -- Cyrius| ✎ 9 July 2005 06:03 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right, but more people die in the Bay of Bengal area than anywhere else, and they are almost all from storm surge. In most storms nobody is killed by storm surge, but every now and then a storm surge will cover an entire city and vast numbers will die. My point is that any statement like this has to be qualified. (P.S. Where does the 59% number come from? Does this include storm surges on lakes like the Okeechobee Hurricane?) Jdorje 01:42, 10 July 2005 (UTC) reply

The 90% figure is right for U.S. hurricane-related deaths before about 1970. The loss of life attributed to Camille's storm surge was a/the motivating factor for the U.S. National Weather Service to do something about it. The results of thousands of hypothetical hurricanes "run" through the NWS's numerical model, SLOSH, have been used to show surge vulnerability along the entire Gulf and Atlantic U.S. coastlines. Emergency Managers successfully use these results to plan coastal evacuations. SBaig 2010 UTC, 06 December 2005.

Stephen, I did not know you wiki! Would like to expand the article on storm surge (like I'm ever going to have time to do that...) and if so sure could use your help (like you're ever going to have time to do that...). Mkieper 03:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC) reply

I've just watched a program about Katrina, and they mentioned that the surge produced by Ivan is still the biggest in America's history.

I think it's premature to change the article to include Katrina's surge, since this is very approximate. Camille's surge is well documented at 23 (or whatever) feet, and we can surely find a NOAA source for this. Finding a reliable source for Ivan or Katrina will be harder. I think we can just qualify the Camille number with "as of 2003". Jdorje 22:16, 6 September 2005 (UTC) reply

I honestly believe that after the research is done, it will be found that Katrina's storm surge will be the highest ever recorded. The surge was so high and reached so far inland that it destroyed area's of the MS Gulf Coast that were uneffected by surge during Camille. A friend of mine has a house approximately 1/2 mile above the beach in Bay St. Louis, MS. When the house was built, it was surveyed to be in a "flood free" zone, having an elevation of 34 feet above sea level at the foundation (ie., 34' above the Gulf of Mexico just 1/2 mile away). During the height of the surge, water stood approximately 9 feet in the bottom floor of the house. The math is fairly simple, if the foundation of his house is at 34' and he had 9' of water above that, then the storm surge in the hardest hit county (Hancock) of the MS coast had to be 40+ feet at a minimum. I don't feel that Ivan can be too greatly compared to Katrina in regards to the surge. Though Ivan did a lot of damage, Katrina's surge was much greater. Remember, Ivan hit right at the Mobile Bay, yet Katrina caused the worst floods in Mobile history and it's eye (the heart of the storm) was many miles to the west. --- A resident of MS Gulf Coast, 12 Sept, 2005.

• * * * * *

If you review a topography map, you will see that the highest point in BSL, and it is a small area, is only 25 ft above sea level (which is why the EOC and other police and fire depts remained in such a vulnerable position prior to the storm: sturdy buildings like the courthouse and the sheriff's dept have to be located in the county seat, and BSL is actually one of the highest areas along the coast of Hancock Cty, so there really wasn't any other place for them to locate without going so far inland they'd be in the sticks; Jackson Cty was in a similar situation). It is extremely common for homeowners to think that their home is higher than it actually is, and I'm not sure what the source of that problem may be (I'm wondering if insurance companies have anything to do with it?). My mother in Moss Point MS was conviced her house was 20 ft above sea level; it was flooded by Katrina and is actually 11-12 ft above sea level. Reading online articles in the MS Press and Sun Herald I discovered a woman on Mary Walker Bayou thought her house was 18 ft elevation; it was 10 (rcvd 5 ft of surge), and someone in Ocean Springs thought their home was 30 ft elevation; it was more like 21-22 ft.

The flood line can be measured, but an analysis has to be done to determine what portion of that was storm surge, what portion was high tide, what portion (in some places) may be due to flooding from rain.

I'll probably be documenting something for Kat's storm surge for Wiki once more surge info becomes avail. I've already done a lot of unofficial work mapping the surge line in the aerial photos against topographic maps for the eastern part of the MS coastline.

Mkieper 21:14, 14 October 2005 (UTC) reply

This article would benefit from some photographs of actual storm surges as they hit.

66.227.84.101 ( talk) 20:43, 13 September 2008 (UTC) reply

Can someone please clarify what exactly a storm surge is: To wit -- Is it a giant tidal wave, or a flood that comes in like a tidal wave.

They are all tidal waves. Added to the surging tide is trhe fact that everything in the region is added to by high rainfalls causing flooding that may take place everywhere in the watershed.

Also consider that with tropical storms they are almost invariably precipitated by a magnitude 5.5 or larger earthquake in the region where the storm is going to be at its peak some days later.

With tropical storms this quake precedes the storm and with higher latitude storms the quake tends to occur with the eye or cyclone centre in place at the epicentre.

There is obviously some relation in fluid dynamics with seismic activity and streamlining storms. Of greater interest to would be denialists is the direction of storm migration in higher latitudes compared to the direction of a tropical wave.

You are not going to find suitable quotes for any of this of course as it is all original research by yours truly.

I was just answering your question, not asking to be believed. Let fools debate the true reality. I'd rather see the world the way it has to be. A little bit of thinking is all they lack. The gene's out now and it's not going back.

Weatherlawyer ( talk) 22:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC) reply

Hi, A storm surge is a flood that comes in like a tidal wave. It is caused by the extreme winds that come with a Tropical Cyclone. However, on top of this storm surge the winds also cause huge waves that are like mini tidal waves.

Perhaps you should read the article. A storm surge does not come in like a tidal wave (tsunami), it comes in like a tide: slowly. And it dissipates much more slowly as well - about 1 foot per mile - so it can penetrate much farther inland if the elevation remains low enough. And yes there are waves on top of it but these don't behave like tsunamis either, they are just regular waves - but potentially very large. — jdorje ( talk) 19:51, 1 May 2006 (UTC) reply

Then what do you call the waves that hit Tacloban during Haiyan? They were described as storm surge but they came so quickly, very different from your description of storm surge?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.191.89.59 ( talk) 5 December 2014

Just to note, recent research shows that the type of damage occuring from tsunamis and storm surge is similar, in spite of the differences (explained corrrectly above) in speed of inundation and wave effect: http://engineering.princeton.edu/news/young Margie 16:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC) reply

I have modified the article to explain the difference bewteen storm surge and storm tide, and how the two terms are used interchangeably in casual usage. I also started cleaning up the paragraph listing record storm surges (all of which were actually storm tide records), and found the entire paragraph had been lifted verbatim from a NASA web page (which in turn was probably cut and pasted from some NOAA web page, I would imagine). I made a number of modifications so that it is no longer a cut-and-paste. When lifting entire paragraphs, shouldn't these be referenced as a quote, rather than appearing to be original writing? Margie 16:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC) reply

Storm surge appears to be a change in water level more like an exceptionally high tide rather than the "wall of water" popularly portrayed in the media. The rate of change appears to be associated with speed of approach of storm and the height by the windspeed. Levels can be affected by shape of shoreline and slope of the bottom as tides can be effected. Increasing height of waves will of course be added on top of the surge and the stage of tide present. Surge appears to go from average to max in very roughly eight hours in the model linked below. I would expect the rate of change in feet per hour to increase with the maximum height of the surge.

NOAA explanation:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/storm_surge.shtml

Graphic model of 1998 Gulf storm:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/surge/slosh2.gif

I would welcome expert opinion here since my impressions have been derived from about a half hour of study and the application of what I hope is common sense. Tobyw 07:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Storm surge associated with tropical cyclones moves inland at the same speed the TC is moving. For a TC moving at 15 mph, as Katrina was when landfalling on the MS coastline, the surge comes in at 15 mph. This may not seem very fast, but is equivalent to speeds seen in white water rapids. Surge often does rise rapidly; many people in MS were killed in their homes when the water came in so quickly, with such a strong current, that they could not make it out a window or door. Wiki has an image of Katrina's surge taken by Judith Bradford of Waveland -- when I interviewed her, she told me that water came in and rose to the ceiling of their first floor in only 10 minutes. Margie 17:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC) reply

I don't think this article should be top importance. High is probably more appropriate, IMO. Hurricanehink ( talk) 03:57, 10 September 2006 (UTC) reply

Agreed. Only the core article tropical cyclone and the flagship article Hurricane Katrina should be Top-importance IMO. CrazyC83 01:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC) reply

I dropped it to high importance, as the topic is still pretty important. Hurricanehink ( talk) 15:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC) reply

Raised back to top, as we upgraded the top 12 articles to top on the WikiProject's talk. Tito xd^{( ?!?)} 22:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC) reply

Now that information regarding SLOSH has been added, the article should be ready for GA. I submitted the article for GA today. Hopefully more useful suggestions for improvement will spring forth in short order. Thegreatdr 00:45, 16 April 2007 (UTC) reply

I think this article is certainly getting there. However, storm tide should be discussed in the article of that name, its related but not the same. At the same time it should be an article in its own right. As casual uses confuses the two, a section on the two here explaining the differences is important; but once the distinction is explained this article should be about surge and not tide.-- Nilf anion ( talk) 11:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC) reply

I have passed this article as a GA. A few suggestions though: more references are needed before you take it to FAC, the Mitigation section could use some expansion, and you might consider converting the diagram in the Mechanics section to SVG. Overall, though, this is a well-written article. Good luck with any future plans you may have for it. — Scott5114 ↗ 20:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC) reply

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Meteorology and atmospheric sciences" articles. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have made several minor corrections throughout the article. Altogether the article is well-written and is still in great shape after its passing in 2007. Continue to improve the article making sure all new information is properly sourced and neutral. It would also be beneficial to go through the article and update all of the access dates of the inline citations and fix any dead links. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! -- Nehrams2020 ( talk) 04:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC) reply

The content of the article is applicable anywhere, so I don't see that being a POV issue. However, the examples were mainly from the US in one section of the article, so I added wording including the Bay of Bengal. Before removing the tag, does that address the issue that introduced the tag? It's interesting that in the two previous GA reviews, this didn't come up. Of course, the reviewers could have been from the US, which could explain that. Thegreatdr ( talk) 16:30, 12 October 2008 (UTC) reply

I think there should be some consideration of conditions in the North Sea. Storm surge issues impact the low lying and densely populated area of south east England, northern Belgium, and the southern provinces of the Netherlands. Although the most recent large scale catastrophic flooding took place as long ago as 1953, with 1800 lives lost and 100,000 homeless in the Netherlands, the engineering solutions developed then are still relevant today. Everybody got to be somewhere! ( talk) 16:31, 2 April 2009 (UTC) reply

We could include more about the North Sea iff (if and only if) references can be found discussing its bathymetry, etcetera, from published sources. Thegreatdr ( talk) 14:19, 6 January 2011 (UTC) reply

How come in this article it says that the highest storm surge caused by Katrina was in Bay St.Louis, MS with a height of 24 feet? In the Biloxi wiki article it says that it was hit with a 31 ft storm surge. Are these two articles conflicting? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Transkar ( talk • contribs) 17:47, 16 March 2009 (UTC) reply

I suspect that the name "storm surge" or "tidal surge" depends on what is the larger factor. For example in the Thames estuary the tide usually varies by up to 24 feet (7.3 metres) of so, [1] so a relatively small additional height from a storm can break flood defences. [2] [3] On the other hand if a storm surge hit at low tide it would not even be noticed! In my opinion the lead in this article is heavily biased towards the situation on the US coast line that are vulnerable to Hurricane storm surges where the storm is more significant than the tide. -- PBS ( talk) 13:48, 1 June 2009 (UTC) reply

E.g. "but the most extreme storm surge events occur as a result of tropical cyclones." No tropical cyclones in the Eastern North Atlantic or North Sea but European windstorms, which can cause large storm surges. -- PBS ( talk) 14:09, 1 June 2009 (UTC) reply

This has been rectified in the lead. If you can provide a reference showing 30+ foot (9+ meter) storm surges from extratropical cyclones, by all means, share with the class. Thegreatdr ( talk) 14:21, 6 January 2011 (UTC) reply

"The effects are much worse considering Filipino cultural notions that swimming in the storm surge is considered a brave thing to do."

Where's the reference for this statement? I think there should be a citation for this statement if this is really true, because I am a Filipino who was born and raised and is still living in the Philippines. I also used to swim in the beaches along Eastern Visayas' Pacific coasts. I don't think we ever have that kind of "cultural notion" in this side of the world.

Bornok 20 ( talk) 15:39, 5 December 2014 (UTC) reply

Its a load of... added in for a laugh by someone. Jason Rees ( talk) 15:51, 5 December 2014 (UTC) reply

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Given that a storm surge depends on a combination of weather, tidal, and geographic features, I presume that they only occur in certain parts of the world. This is hinted at in the article, but I don't see an explicit statement of this. I think this should be expanded on, including saying what parts of the world are not affected. (This is prompted by reading Strabo's words in the article on the Cimbri, which indicate he obviously was ignorant of the behavior of storm surges outside of his Mediterranean home). Iapetus ( talk) 09:49, 30 July 2018 (UTC) reply

Can we get some idea of the causes that typically have the greatest effects in a surge? Could there be something in the article about the relative importance of the following causes, especially which are most important: Direct wind effect, Atmospheric pressure effect, Effect of the Earth's rotation, Effect of waves, Rainfall effect, Sea depth and topography, Storm size? Thanks. CountMacula ( talk) 02:58, 29 September 2022 (UTC) reply

@ CountMacula The second paragraph is pretty clear that wind is the main meteorological effect. Is that not clear for you? Sadads ( talk) 13:06, 29 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Do I understand that in general, anything in the lede is supposed to be supported in article besides the lede? CountMacula ( talk) 17:03, 29 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Storm surge