On Variability of Mean Wave Direction During Severe Storms

The paper deals with the directional analysis of severe storms in some European locations, in the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea. The analysis is carried out by considering significant wave height and wave direction time series, from the HIPOCAS project database. At each considered location, all storms in the data set are identified. Then, for each storm, variability of direction during sea states is investigated. The results of this analysis show how direction during storms varies within well-defined sectors identified from the main directions from which the strongest storms occur plus or minus a certain angle Δϑ, and from one or more secondary sectors. The variation of direction during storms is evaluated in terms of standard deviation of direction, either by considering all sea states during storm, or only sea states during the part of the storm above a fixed threshold h of significant wave height. The results show that standard deviation of direction decreases as the threshold h increases and it is due to the fact that variability of direction near the storm peak is smaller than in the full storm.Copyright © 2014 by ASME