Auxiliary Material for
Water-level response in back-barrier bays unchanged following Hurricane Sandy
Alfredo L. Aretxabaleta1, 2, Bradford Butman1, and Neil K. Ganju1
(1 U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.)
(2 Integrated Statistics, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.)
Geophysical Research Letters, 2014
Introduction
The auxiliary material includes information about the station sites that provided the water
level data (operator, sampling interval, datum) in ts01.docx; the yearly M2 tidal amplitude at
three of the stations in ts02.docx; the characteristics of the storms that caused the high-water
events in the Middle Atlantic Bight during 2012-2013 in ts03.docx and the corresponding
map of the storms with atmospheric pressure contours in fs02.eps; and finally the time series
of 6-minute water level data at Sandy Hook (New Jersey) for the period 2007-2013 with the
corresponding 30-h and 60-d low-pass filtered water level.
1. ts01.docx Sites used in water level analyses. Data were retrieved for 1 Oct 2007 to 30
Dec 2013, the period with the most overlapping data at the time of analysis. National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Data for Lindenhurst was converted to NAVD88 by subtracting 0.36 m.
1.1. Column “Site name”, station name and abbreviation.
1.2. Column “Operator”, agency maintaining the operations of the station.
1.3. Column “Site ID”, identification number for stations.
1.4. Column “Sample interval”, interval between successive samples.
1.5. Column “Datum”, datum use as reference for water level measurements.
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2. ts02.docx M2 tidal amplitude (m) for each year 2007-2013 (1 November to 30 October)
using T_Tide (Pawlowicz et al., 2002). Uncertainty estimates from T_Tide are 0.004 m
for SH, 0.003 m for MAN, and 0.002 m for LIN.
2.1. Column “Station”, station name with SH representing Sandy Hook (NJ), MAN
representing Mantoloking (NJ), and LIN, Lindenhurst (NY).
2.2. Row “year”, year of sampling starting 1 November the previous year and ending
30 October of the year indicated.
2.3. Row “SH”, m, M2 tidal amplitude for station Sandy Hook.
2.4. Row “MAN”, m, M2 tidal amplitude for station Mantoloking.
2.5. Row “LIN”, m, M2 tidal amplitude for station Lindenhurst.
3. ts03.docx Characteristics of storms that caused high-water events in the Middle Atlantic
Bight including date; storm type; minimum pressure location and value determined from
NOAA daily weather maps; and reference wind speed and wind gust from National Data
Buoy Center Buoy 44065 at entrance to New York Harbor.
3.1. Column “Date”, date of storm occurrence.
3.2. Column “Storm type”, type of storm (front, nor’easter, extratropical).
3.3. Column “Minimum pressure location”, location of the minimum pressure with
respect to the coast (offshore, coastal).
3.4. Column “Minimum pressure over MAB”, mbar, minimum atmospheric pressure
over Middle Atlantic Bight determined from NOAA daily weather maps.
3.5. Column “Maximum wind speed (gust)”, m/s, reference wind speed and wind gust
(in parenthesis) from National Data Buoy Center Buoy 44065 at entrance to New
York Harbor.
4. fs01.eps Time-series of 6-minute (gray), 30-h low-pass (red), 60-d low-pass (blue)
filtered, and linear trend (black) sea level (m) at SH for 1 October 2007 – 30 September
2013. Numbers are the event rank for the top-20 daily high water events since 2007
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(Table 1) and the blue dashed line at 1.55 m is the threshold for the top-20 highest daily
water levels at Sandy Hook since 2007.
5. fs02.eps Weather maps for Hurricane Sandy, and storms (Table S3) that caused record
high water levels in the Middle Atlantic Bight in the interval October 2012 – April 2013.
The numbers indicate atmospheric pressure (mbar).
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