Hurricane Hindcast Methodology and Wave Statistics for Atlantic and Gulf Hurricanes from 1956 - 1975

Hindcast Hurricane Swell for the Coast of Southern California

“…The hindcast grid did not represent bathymetric features smaller than 30 nautical miles*; thus the effects of shoal areas and islands are not modeled. Despite these difficulties, the results of the study appear to be well verified, as shown by the comparisons to measurements during Hurricane Marie and previous verifications of the wind and wave model presented in WIS Report 19 (Abel et al 1989).…”

“…It deals only with the swell waves produced from hurricane systems and does not address those waves generated by local winds along the southern California coastline at the time of the hurricane. The WIS Report 20 (Jensen et al, in preparation) presents the wave climatology along the southern California coastline as derived from a 20-year hindcast using meteorological conditions over the North Pacific Ocear Results from a similar WIS study on the influence of hurricanes on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines is presented in WIS Report 19 (Abel et al 1989).…”

“…* This model was recently usedto produce 20-years of wave conditions in the southern California area from Point Conception to the Mexican border and is discussed in WIS Report 20(Jensen et al, in preparation). It was also used to calculate wave information for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico hurricanes (see WIS Report 19(Abel et al 1989)) and 20 years of nonhurricane wave information in the Gulf of Mexico (see WIS Report 18(Hubertz and Brooks 1989)).…”

Geomorphic variability in the coastal zone / by Joann Mossa, Edward P. Meisburger, Andrew Morang.

“…Wave hindcasting is widely used for obtaining wave statistics by analysis of weather maps using techniques developed from theoretical considerations and empirical data (Coastal Engineering Research Center 1984) ( Figure 25). Over the last several decades, since wave hindcasting came into common use, numerous improvements have been made in the technique and reasonably reliable information on wave climate in given areas can be computed (Abel et al 1989; Hubertz and Brooks 1989;Jensen, Hubertz, and Payne 1989;; A large amount of wave data is available in the form of visual wave observations from ships at sea and from shore stations along the coasts of the United States. Although observations are less accurate than measured data, experienced persons can achieve reasonably accurate results and the large database of available observations makes it a valuable resource.…”