MODELING THE IMPACTS OF A DIRECTLY LANDFALLING TROPICAL CYCLONE ON COASTAL GEORGIA

Tropical cyclones (TC) are one of the deadliest and costliest natural disasters in the United States and worldwide. The Georgia Coastline has not been directly impacted by a landfalling TC since October 1898. The “1898 Georgia Hurricane” was an intense TC that caused catastrophic flooding in SE Georgia and NE Florida. This study uses WRF-ARW to downscale reanalysis data from the NOAA/DOE 20th Century Reanalysis v.3 dataset. Climate data was then used to analyze the storm as it would be in today’s climate, and a future climate. Results indicate that the storm might have been weaker than it is recorded in the HURDAT2 database, but the surge was still catastrophic. Furthermore, a major hurricane may not be necessary to produce the surge recorded in observations.