Improving storm surge predictions in the Gulf of Mexico by enhancing a parametric model of tropical cyclone

Accurate storm surge prediction requires reliable representation of hurricane wind fields. The widely used Holland2010 model describes the wind structure with maximum wind speed, central pressure, and the radius of maximum wind, but it does not account for other observed wind radii such as the 64-kt radius, which can distort the radial wind profile. In this paper, we introduced a scaling approach to the Holland2010 model that forces its wind field to match both the observed maximum wind and the 64-kt radius, which improves the accuracy of storm surge predictions. The new scaled model was validated using Hurricane Ian 2022 in the Gulf of Mexico. In comparison with observations, the original Holland2010 model produced large errors in wind structure, with the wind-speed error at the 64-kt radius reaching 60.8 %. In contrast, the scaled model reproduced wind speeds at the 64-kt radius in exact agreement with observations. Substantial improvements were also achieved in storm surge prediction. For the observed peak surge of 4.033 m, the original Holland model produced a maximum surge of 5.990 m with a 48.52 % error, while the scaled model yielded 4.034 m with the error reduced to only 0.02 %. • A new scaling parameter is proposed to modify the Holland et al., 2010 wind model. • The scaled model reproduces both the observed maximum wind and the wind speed at the 64-kt radius during Hurricane Ian. • The simulation error of the observed peak storm surge is reduced from 48.52 % to 0.02 % with the scaled wind field.