The image above is commonly known as a DEM (Digital Elevation Model). Those of you familiar with the Florida / Alabama gulf coast will recognize different geographical features such as the intercoastal waterway, Escambia Bay, Perdido Bay, and the eastern half of Mobile Bay.

Although the image looks like a black picture, the various gray scale colors represent elevations. In this image the darkest color represents sea level (elevation 0 meters) and the lightest color represents the maximum elevation (114 meters) in the image.

 A portion of this image has been reproduced for work in this project. Clicking this image will download a .tif image for work on this project. Specifics on the downloaded .tif image are the following:

• The lowest DN is 185 and represents an elevation of 33 meters
• The highest DN is 254 and represents an elevation of 1 meter.
• The area covered by 1 pixel covers a 30x30 meter square (900 square meters).
• One meter is equal to 3.3 feet.
• Ignore the pixel value of 146 which is the DN shade representing the ocean.

Some of the parameters one should be concern with is storm surge and flooding. The amount of storm surge is dependent upon the coastline, strength of the hurricane, tides, angle at which the eye of the storm crosses the coast, as well as a host of other variables.

Based upon available data, storm surge is expected to range from 5 to 14 feet, excluding breaking waves. Knowing this information, it might be nice to determine how much area will be under water at 5 feet and 14 feet (based upon the provided image (westesca.tiff.sit), when the storm makes landfall in the Pensacola area. Determine the elevations of the following coordinates and whether one can expect the area to flood under the above conditions.

Click the above left image (westesca.tif.sit) for a modified .tif file which is required for determining the above information.

Other Information