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How the Weather Channel Made That Insane Hurricane Florence Storm Surge Animation (wired.com)
The Weather Channel's 3-D, room-encompassing depiction of the Hurricane Florence storm surge took many by surprise on Friday (Second video). It doesn't tell, it shows, more bracingly than you'd think would be possible on a meteorological update, writes Wired. Here's how they did it. CNET: In one video, meteorologist Erika Navarro demonstrates what a progressive storm surge would mean at a human level. (Storm surge is simply the "abnormal rise of water generated by a storm" that is "produced by water being pushed toward the shore by the force of the winds," according to the National Hurricane Center.) "Storm surge is going to be potentially life-threatening for some areas along the US coastline," Navarro says. Then she demonstrates what's described as a "reasonable, worst-case scenario for areas along North Carolina." Here's where the video gets heart-in-throat scary. As Navarro stands and speaks, the weather maps behind her dissolve away, and she is shown standing in a computer-generated neighborhood. The CGI water rises behind her, setting a red car afloat and flooding homes.
[...] The Weather Channel has been using augmented reality since 2015. This year, it partnered with content and technology provider The Future Group and its impressive Immersive Mixed Reality technology, which uses Unreal Engine software. The tech debuted on TWC in June, when meteorologist Jim Cantore used it to walk viewers through what would happen if a tornado hit the channel's own studios. A demo showing the power of lightning followed in July. Reaction to the hurricane explainer has been overwhelmingly positive, said Michael Potts, Weather Channel's vice president of design. "It was created to evoke an automatic visceral reaction, to imagine that this could be real," Potts said. "And people are sharing it with friends and family as a warning tool. The amount of engagement across all of our platforms has been some of the highest we've ever seen." The neighborhood Navarro is standing in looks real, but it's all virtual graphics created in a new green-screen studio built at the channel's Atlanta headquarters. "All the graphics you see, from the cars, the street, the houses and the entire neighborhood are created using the Unreal Engine -- they are not real," Potts says. "The circle she is standing in is the presentation area, it's a 'safe' space that is not affected by the weather. ... The maps and data are all real-time and the atmospheric conditions are driven by the forecast." More on this here.
[...] The Weather Channel has been using augmented reality since 2015. This year, it partnered with content and technology provider The Future Group and its impressive Immersive Mixed Reality technology, which uses Unreal Engine software. The tech debuted on TWC in June, when meteorologist Jim Cantore used it to walk viewers through what would happen if a tornado hit the channel's own studios. A demo showing the power of lightning followed in July. Reaction to the hurricane explainer has been overwhelmingly positive, said Michael Potts, Weather Channel's vice president of design. "It was created to evoke an automatic visceral reaction, to imagine that this could be real," Potts said. "And people are sharing it with friends and family as a warning tool. The amount of engagement across all of our platforms has been some of the highest we've ever seen." The neighborhood Navarro is standing in looks real, but it's all virtual graphics created in a new green-screen studio built at the channel's Atlanta headquarters. "All the graphics you see, from the cars, the street, the houses and the entire neighborhood are created using the Unreal Engine -- they are not real," Potts says. "The circle she is standing in is the presentation area, it's a 'safe' space that is not affected by the weather. ... The maps and data are all real-time and the atmospheric conditions are driven by the forecast." More on this here.
They're probably closer to the truth than whatever you're thinking.
For the record: A storm surge is primarily caused by the relationship between the winds and the ocean’s surface.
There is another source that basically says the same thing. To wit: As winds swirl around a hurricane or tropical storm, seawater is pushed into a mound at the storm’s center. Faster wind is able to pile up more water.
Also, per UCAR, about 5% of the storm surge is due to low pressure within the hurricane; the majority of the effect is from wind.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
"...produced by water being pushed toward the shore by the force of the winds," according to the National Hurricane Center.
So even they're ignorant as to what causes storm surge... or they've got a young, dumb intern who took a guess... and failed.
What part of anything they said is wrong? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Mechanics
At least five processes can be involved in altering tide levels during storms:
The atmospheric pressure effect
The direct wind effect
The effect of the Earth's rotation
The effect of waves near the shore
The rainfall effect.[11]
I don't know anything about it, but NOAA agrees: "The impact on surge of the low pressure associated with intense storms is minimal in comparison to the water being forced toward the shore by the wind."
Hurricane Hugo hit that same area with a storm surge of more than 20 feet in some areas. (I lived in Mt Pleasant SC at the time - it was, umm, interesting post-hurricane to see pieces of some of the Shem Creek shrimp-boat piers leaning on the McDonalds a few miles inland by the hospital....)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Hugo#South_Carolina
Hurricane Ike also topped a 20-foot surge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike
Katrina was 28 feet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina#Mississippi
I guess GP hadn't heard the rules:
A) It's okay to be wrong. None of us knows everything.
B) We'll tolerate being an asshole when you're pointing out something stupid.
BUT you have to pick one or the other. Don't be an asshole and be wrong at the same time. Calling someone dumb while "correcting" their true statement with your own goof isn't a good look. Don't be an asshole when you don't know what you are talking about.
We were in Boca Raton when Andrew came through (about 80 miles or 130km north of the worst damage, for those who don't know), and you're spot-on. We were geared up for the worst in the days leading to Andrew's landfall, since they didn't know exactly where it would land. By the time it was all said and done, however, the most that we had to deal with were some screens that popped out over our screened-in pool. A neighbor of ours had some flooding in a part of their house that was below the groundwater level, and a few people who didn't have shutters had to replace their windows, but that was about it around us.
But we had friends in Homestead (i.e. where Andrew hit the hardest) who rode the storm out by hiding in the interior bathroom of their home as their house collapsed around them. They crawled out from under the rubble after the storm was over and then had to live out of the half of their house that was left for the next several weeks. I recall them talking years later about how it was actually a really amazing experience, since the community came together in incredibly positive ways in the aftermath, with everyone helping everyone and the attitude staying really upbeat.
Anyway, yeah, just because a hurricane doesn't do much damage in one area that was ready for impact doesn't mean that the storm is, as the OP put it, "a BIG nothing burger". It just means they were fortunate.
I have friends in New Bern whose houses have a foot of water in them. I have a friend in Jacksonville who has likely lost his business because the building lost it's roof. I have friends on Oak Island whose houses are almost certainly heavily damaged...
Fuck you. There's enormous damage and the storm is nowhere near over. You got lucky, but you have to be abysmally stupid and self centered to believe that you represent everyone across a hundred miles of coast and a hundred miles inland.