Filling the gaps between tide gauges: Demonstrating high-resolution seasonal high tide flooding predictions using NOAA’s Coastal Ocean Reanalysis

Matthew P. Conlin, Gregory Dusek, John Ratcliff, John Callahan, Karen Kavanaugh, William Brooks, Blake Waring, Analise Keeney, William Sweet, Matthew J. Widlansky

High Tide Flooding (HTF) is a present and increasing hazard for coastal communities across the United States. NOAA provides HTF outlooks at U.S. tide gauges, however, many coastal communities lie relatively far from a tide gauge and therefore currently lack localized HTF guidance. In this study, we demonstrate an approach to generate spatially-continuous daily predictions of HTF at 400-500 m resolution out to a year into the future, by combining NOAA’s monthly HTF outlook framework with the newly-released Coastal Ocean Reanalysis (CORA). Using CORA to derive daily HTF predictions at tide gauges, as compared to using gauge observations, results in average HTF model skill reduction of less than or equal to 5% using three different statistical metrics at one month lead time. Further, stations which obtain statistically skillful HTF predictions using gauge data also do so using CORA for 94% of cases. The results suggest that CORA could enable skillful HTF predictions away from tide gauges, supporting the possibility of providing high resolution HTF outlooks for much of the U.S. coastline. The potential value of these spatially continuous HTF predictions is illustrated by identifying communities near Charleston S.C. with different CORA-derived local HTF risk than that provided by the closest tide gauge. Finally, we describe outstanding questions and needs for the scaling of these results to an operational national-scale monthly HTF outlook.