A considerable amount of detailed information on storms and hurricanes and their resulting impact upon landfall has been compiled over the past 15 years. These data have allowed for the development of detailed and successful prediction methodologies. However, there is also a need for generalized or more simply applicable tools for predicting coastal impact from extreme meteorological events. Two such pragmatic tools have been presented. In the first, mean and maximum beach and coast erosion quantities have been correlated to the Saffir-Simpson hurricane damage potential scale, resulting in an amended Saffir-Simpson scale. In addition, two figures have been produced, one of which relates storm surge to storm tide rise time, and the other which relates storm surge to forward speed of a storm or hurricane. These can be used as nomographs to assess the erosion damage potential in real time as an event is approaching the coast. The second tool is based on the binomial probability theorem. It allows one to assess, for instance, encounter probabilities for known return periods and encounter periods, and is of valuable assistance in the design phase of a coastal project.

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