Hydro-meteorological approach for the estimation of hurricane-induced floods

Hurricanes cause great damage in the tropics and due to its geographical location, Mexico experiences the landfall of such storms along both coasts as it covers 2 different cyclogenesis areas: the Eastern Pacific and the North Atlantic basins. For two catchments in southern Mexico, a set of weather prediction, hydrological and hydraulic models were used in cascade to simulate precipitation, runoff and flood maps observed during the extreme flooding that occurred in September 2013. The flood resulted from the rare simultaneous occurrence of 2 tropical cyclones and the framework provided an adequate numerical reproduction. Results show the usefulness of this approach by considering uncertainty limits that can be used for urban planning and development purposes.