A storm surge in the North Sea. The curves are predictions from the storm surge warning system, the squares are observations. The tide is subtracted from the data, so only the effect of the wind surge is shown; this has to be added to the tide to obtain final sea level. Blue squares indicate local high water.The storm surge enters from the North Atlantic Ocean and builds up as the water is pushed into the North Sea and towards the narrow Channel between England and France. Notice the increase in surge height from 1.5 m at Immingham (I) to 1.7 m at Lowestoft (L) and 2m at Walton (W) and Southend (S). The green line indicates that it takes the surge about 11 hours to travel from Immingham to Southend.
Adapted from Pugh (1987)
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