JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – We're in the last chapter of a relatively quiet, disaster free hurricane season. With three weeks left to go, it is becoming very unlikely that a storm of significant strength will hit the U.S. before the close of the season on November 30th.
Nonetheless, the National Hurricane Center released new interactive maps Thursday showing possible inundation of all areas along the gulf coast and east coast during a hurricane, including us here in the Jacksonville area.
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According to the NHC, approximately 22 million people in the U.S. are vulnerable to storm surge. It's responsible for about half the deaths in the United States due to tropical cyclones, and many evacuation routes become inundated in a variety of scenarios. This map makes it clear that storm surge is not just a beachfront problem, with the risk of storm surge extending several miles from the immediate coastline in some areas.
Florida has a particularly large vulnerable population, with about 40 percent of its residents at risk to storm surge flooding.
The NHC utilizes the hydrodynamic Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model to simulate storm surge in 27 basins along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts. Based on climatology, tens of thousands of hypothetical hurricanes are simulated in each basin and the potential storm surges are calculated. Composites of the resulting storm surges are created to assess and visualize overall storm surge risk based on a wide range of possibilities.
Below is a close up of Duval county and what the water rise would be in a category 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 scenario. See the entire gulf and east coast by clicking here.
| Category 1 | Category 2 |
| Category 3 | Category 4 |
| Category 5 |  |
