After a slow start of the hurricane season 2022, hurricane IAN took many Floridians by surprise when it developed into a large and extremely destructive Category 4 Atlantic hurricane, becoming the 37th major hurricane to ever strike the state of Florida, and just the 15th rated at Category 4 or higher. Storm surge levels higher than 10 feet were predicted and finally reported, hitting especially the Fort Myers region in Florida.
Maximum inundation above ground for the landfall location of hurricane IAN (West Coast of Florida) as displayed on the CERA website. Data provider: ADCIRC Surge Guidance System (ASGS).
The CERA team started early on to come up with real-time water level, wind, and wave predictions for this storm. As the storm strengthened, the user interest grew rapidly. Over 90,000 viewers across all U.S. states looked for storm surge guidance on the CERA website, creating the highest access rate since Hurricane Irma in 2017. The incredible interest rate at the peak of the storm even put the CERA system temporarily to a challenge!
In collaboration with the ADCIRC Surge Guidance System – ASGS (Seahorse Coastal Consulting LLC), our team produced more than 100+ ADCIRC model runs on three different High Performance Computer systems to deliver timely, highly efficient, and accurate results to stakeholders and the general public.
Users at federal, state, and regional agencies used CERA during hurricane IAN, like the US Coast Guard, the USACE, FEMA, the US Air Force, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Weather Service, the Military Aviation, Emergency Management and Disaster Response units, Fire Rescue units, the Department of Transportation, among many others. A huge user interest group from local businesses including water distribution maintenance services, construction firms, recycling and engineering consulting firms, financial services, IT security and cyber analytics companies, electric firms, homeowner, rental, and animal services, school districts, visitor bureaus, ship logistics, and others expressed their thanks to CERA which once again proved its high importance as a real-time guidance tool during severe weather events.
