Coastal Flood — Wake Island, Guam

2024-01-19 to 2024-01-20 · Wake Island, Guam

Event narrative

The north shores began seeing higher than normal water levels on January 18th, with flooding occurring between 2200LST (2000ChST) on January 19th through 0900LST (0700 ChST) on January 20th. The Downtown area, located on the north side of the lagoon of Wake island, was flooded by water from the north reefs/shores flooding all the barracks and dining facilities. All of the barrack were made off limit and considered unsafe, and everyone affected was moved into MDA, manager and DET (Commander's) housing. Water then went across the lagoon, flooding the taxiway and washed out the dirt road to Wilkes Islands. No injuries were reported for this event. The tide station on Wake Island is located on the southern side of the atoll and was sheltered for the event. However, the tide gage did report water levels above tide prediction, with water levels exceeding predictions by about 0.6 feet from both MSL and MLLW. As of end of March 2024, no damages estimates have been made public for Wake Island.

Wider weather episode

A distant but powerful extratropical cyclone passing well north of Micronesia, created a long period north swell that traveled through the region. It generated very high surf and led to quick and extensive coastal flooding within the Republic of the Marshall islands and parts of Micronesia. The swell also moved into the southern hemisphere with some impacts being reported across the Samoan Islands.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1159314. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.