HINDCAST ESTIMATES OF EXTREME WAVE CONDITIONS IN THE GULF OF MAINE uri icon

abstract

  • The Gulf of Maine is a region lacking in wave data that can be used for engineering and research purposes. Extreme wave statistics for this area are therefore computed in this paper by numerical hindcasting. A representative sample of twenty-two strong extratropical northeast storms from the period 1942-1976 was selected, and wave heights were computed with a hybrid parametric wave model. The highest wave height at each point in the Gulf of Maine model grid for each storm was used to calculate 50 and 100-year return period wave heights. It is concluded that as a first-order estimate, any major engineering effort in the Gulf of Maine will have to reckon with significant wave heights as high as 13 metres for a 1% chance of occurrence. These results agree extremely well with other estimates based on shipboard observations. 1990 Computational Mechanics Publications.

published proceedings

  • APPLIED OCEAN RESEARCH

author list (cited authors)

  • PANCHANG, V. G., PEARCE, B. R., & PURI, K. K.

citation count

  • 8

complete list of authors

  • PANCHANG, VG||PEARCE, BR||PURI, KK

publication date

  • January 1990