A new approach to using wind speed for prediction of tropical cyclone generated storm surge

We examine the best track wind speed data for all U.S. landfalling hurricanes between 1986 and 2007 to determine the relationship between wind speed and observed maximum storm surge heights at the coast. We show that pre‐landfall intensity correlates significantly better with observed maximum surge heights than landfall intensity does. This outcome is not a result of outliers skewing the data, but is representative of a more definitive trend. We anticipate that our findings will lead to a reconsideration of the way wind is used as a surge predictor, and we believe that our findings provide a possible explanation for why some tropical cyclones' storm surges tend to over/under perform with respect to official storm surge forecasts.