The development of a wind, wave and water level climate is a necessary step to define the storm event population that will be used to estimate the potential for coastal flooding in Lake Michigan. The approach being taken is to simulate wave and storm surge conditions associated the major storm events via computer modeling. Wave conditions and water level condi-tions are dictated by meteorological events. These events can vary from large-scale synoptic-scale events, meso-scale systems like frontal bounda-ries to micro-scale systems synonymous with the development of thunder-storm cells. If the meteorology of these events can be accurately quanti-fied, the associated impact of the surge and waves on a coastal reach also can be quantified.