Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 705–717, 2016 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/16/705/2016/ doi:10.5194/nhess-16-705-2016 © Author(s) 2016. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Maximum wind radius estimated by the 50 kt radius: improvement of storm surge forecasting over the western North Pacific Hiroshi Takagi and Wenjie Wu Tokyo Institute of Technology, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan Correspondence to: Hiroshi Takagi (
[email protected]) Received: 8 September 2015 – Published in Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss.: 27 October 2015 Revised: 18 February 2016 – Accepted: 24 February 2016 – Published: 11 March 2016 Abstract. Even though the maximum wind radius (Rmax) countries such as Japan, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and is an important parameter in determining the intensity and Vietnam. size of tropical cyclones, it has been overlooked in previous storm surge studies. This study reviews the existing estima- tion methods for Rmax based on central pressure or maximum wind speed. These over- or underestimate Rmax because of 1 Introduction substantial variations in the data, although an average radius can be estimated with moderate accuracy. As an alternative, The maximum wind radius (Rmax) is one of the predominant we propose an Rmax estimation method based on the radius of parameters for the estimation of storm surges and is defined the 50 kt wind (R50). Data obtained by a meteorological sta- as the distance from the storm center to the region of maxi- tion network in the Japanese archipelago during the passage mum wind speed.