Tropical Cyclone Wind Characteristics for the Bangladesh Coast Using Monte Carlo Simulation

Wind and storm surge are crucial factors in the determination of how much damage occurs in the coastal regions in association with any particular hurricane or tropical storm. Since very few tropical storms actually strike at a particular site and historical records only exist for the past hundred years or so; that results in a limited number of observations at each site. Monte Carlo simulations are used for each of the five coastal sites of Bangladesh to exploit the historical database more meaningfully. Based on the historical inputs, 1000 simulated storms are generated for each site. The parameters needed to run the simulations are- angle of attack, forward translation speed, radius of maximum wind and central pressure. The Holland (1991) wind field model is used to obtain the horizontal winds. A simple bathymetric storm surge model is used in the simulation that gives maximum surge height for the locations to be struck by a simulated storm. After obtaining the wind statistics from the simulation, analyses such as return period of extreme wind speed for a particular site etc. are carried out.