Directional Wave Spectra Observed During Intense Tropical Cyclones Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • AbstractTwo deepsea moorings were deployed 780 km off the coast of southern Taiwan for 45 months during the 2010 typhoon season. Directional wave spectra, wind speed and direction, and momentum fluxes were recorded on two Extreme AirSea Interaction buoys during the close passage of Severe Tropical Storm Dianmu and three tropical cyclones (TCs): Typhoon Fanapi, Super Typhoon Megi, and Typhoon Chaba. Conditions sampled include significant wave heights up to 11 m and wind speeds up to 26 ms1. Details varied for largescale spectral structure in frequency and direction but were mostly bimodal. The modes were generally composed of a swell system emanating from the most intense storm region and local windseas. The peak systems were consistently young, meaning actively forced by winds, when the storms were close. During the peaks of the most intense passagesChaba at the northern mooring and Megi at the southernthe bimodal seas coalesced. During Chaba, the swell and windsea coupling directed the high frequency waves and the wind stress away from the wind direction. A spectral wave model was able reproduce many of the macrofeatures of the directional spectra.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-OCEANS

altmetric score

  • 0.5

author list (cited authors)

  • Collins, C., Potter, H., Lund, B., Tamura, H., & Graber, H. C.

citation count

  • 40

publication date

  • February 2018