Data and shapefiles used to document the floods associated with the January and March 2018 Nor'easters for Coastal Areas of New England (ver. 2.0, November 2021)

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) New England Water Science Center worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to document the floods of January 4, 2018 and March 2-4, 2018, in coastal Massachusetts. USGS conducted a frequency analysis of stillwater elevations at three National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration coastal gages following the coastal floods of 2018. The data for these analyses for gages in Boston, Massachusetts, Portland, Maine, and Seavey Island, Maine are included in the child item "Data to Support Stillwater Analyses."

Stillwater elevations recorded in January 2018 in Boston (9.66 feet in the North American Vertical Datum of 1988, NAVD88) had an annual exceedance probability (AEP) of between 2- and 1-percent (between a 50- and 100- year recurrence interval). Stillwater elevations recorded in March 2018 in Boston (9.17 ft NAVD 88) had an AEP of between 4- and 2-percent (25- and 50-year recurrence interval) based on the new distribution of statistical stillwater elevations for Boston. A second child item includes high water mark and storm sensor data collected following the events, a flood inundation map polygon reflecting the stillwater elevation with a 1-percent annual exceedance probability, polygons of flood inundation maps for both the January and March events, and interim data layers that were used to create these polygons.

These data were collected in support of the related primary publication by Lombard and others (2021): Lombard, P.J., Olson, S.A., Sturtevant, L.P., and Kalmon, R.D., 2021, Documentation and mapping of flooding from the January and March 2018 nor’easters in coastal New England: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2021–5109, 13 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20215109.

First release: September 30, 2021
Revised: Novemeber 4, 2021 (ver. 2.0)