Utilization of Novel Observational Platforms and Numerical Weather Prediction Tools to Facilitate Prediction, Detection, and Warning Strategies for Meteotsunami Events within the Laurentian Great Lakes

The goal of NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) is to build a weather-ready nation to protect residents from all forms of hazardous weather events. In order to achieve this goal, a need exists to develop the operational capability to detect, monitor and provide early warning information for meteotsunamis. Meteotsunamis occur in numerous locations around the world, including the Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic coast of North America, but until recently represented a phenomenon that was not well understood or easily observed. Although meteotsunamis are similar to seismic-generated tsunami waves, they are induced by meteorological events such as mesoscale convective systems (MCS), atmospheric gravity waves, or other perturbations in barometric pressure at a specific wind speed, and have been observed to reach heights of 2 meters or more. Meteotsunamis occur frequently in the Great Lakes, up to 100 times per year, due to favorable lake depths to promote wave resonance with the typical propagation speeds of atmospheric forcing mechanisms. Meteotsunamis within the Great Lakes occasionally develop with a strength and size to damage coastal infrastructure, sink vessels, and even result in fatalities.

Research at NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) in collaboration with the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) aims to develop an early detection and warning system for these hi-frequency water level oscillations (meteotsunamis) within the Laurentian Great Lakes.

Through the combination of direct observations, via deployment of an innovative DART-4G meteotsunami buoy in the southern part of Lake Michigan and research into novel numerical weather prediction based forecast tools, a prototype detection and warning system is under development that will be compatible with the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS). This detection and warning system is being designed to both forecast meteotsunami potential on timescales of hours to days in advance, and for the early physical detection and verification of meteotsunami occurrence through the DART-4G buoy observations. The intended outcome of this detection system is both to increase awareness of the meteotsunami phenomena along the coasts of the Great Lakes and to protect the public from the hazards associated with these conditions.