Last week Warwick was grazed by three major storms, two of which caused significant flash flooding and even  tornados in the northern part of the state.

The big name, though- in fact, the only name- was Hurricane Lee, which passed safely off into the Atlantic after initial forecasts had the Ocean State in potential danger. Lee spawned some wind and mild drizzles before making landfall in Canada.

The first good sign for Warwick’s chances with the hurricane, according to University of Rhode Island professor Isaac Ginis, was due to the eye of the hurricane being east of Narragansett Bay.

“[If the hurricane’s center is to the west of the bay,] that is the worst case scenario for us,” he said. “If the storm is east of Rhode Island, then the impact in terms of storm surge will be much less.”

Ginis is the creator of a model that predicts the intensity of hurricanes. It was adopted by the National Weather Service after it showed a significant jump in the accuracy of these predictions.

In addition, Ginis contributes to  the RI-CHAMP program, which develops predictions for the impacts of hurricanes and nor’easters on Rhode Island’s local communities. Among the different scenarios that RI-CHAMP has modeled is mitigating damage for a potential flood at the West Warwick Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility to defend the facility from a flooding Pawtuxet River as happened in 2010.

According to Ginis, both the Hurricane of 1938 and Hurricane Carol- the two biggest storms to hit the state in living memory- made landfall in Connecticut, leaving the right side of the storm to pass directly over Rhode Island.

“We were on the right side of the storm, and the wind was blowing to the left,” Ginis said. “[The damage was] because of the counterclockwise wind direction.”

Ginis also said that the state is “overdue” for a major hurricane, with the last one being Carol in 1954.

With its 39 miles of  densely populated shoreline, Warwick is particularly vulnerable to a  storm surge.

Ginis is concerned climate change could alter the speed of storms  after making landfall, causing additional flooding, property damage and life-threatening situations. Despite the devastation caused, both the Hurricane of 1938 and Carol moved through the area relatively fast, Ginis said.

The RI-CHAMP model aims to predict who, what and where would be most affected if this happened using two hypothetical storms, dubbed Hurricane Rhody and Hurricane Ram.

While it’s been a relatively cool summer locally, record temperatures have been recorded elsewhere, including ocean temperatures reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit off the coast of Florida in July. According to Ginis, the higher rate of evaporation in the ocean that this leads to could be a potential catalyst for a major storm in the future.

“Essentially, we have a significant supply of moisture this year into the atmosphere, which just cannot hold too much moisture,” he said.

As for how Warwick can better deal with a potential future superstorm, Ginis said that one of the city’s biggest challenges is mitigating flood damage, as flooding and storm surges are among the deadliest components of a hurricane.

In particular, Ginis is concerned about how much of the city consists of asphalt and concrete, which cannot absorb water, and could lead to additional flooding even in the parts of the city furthest away from the bay.

“We need to create some way to get this rain out from the ground and not to accumulate, which leads to flooding,” Ginis said. “That’s going to be an additional engineering challenge.”