Relation Between Significant Wave Height and Wind Speed at 10 m during Hurricane Wilma

Professor S. A. Hsu
Louisiana State University
Email: Email: sahsu@lsu.edu

In the August 2016 issue of this Journal, the author presented following formula for wind seas,

Formula 1

Here Hs and U10 are the significant wave height in meters and wind speed at 10 meters in meters per second, respectively. The coefficients "a" and "b" need to be determined from field measurements.

When Hurricane Wilma in 2005 was over the Northwestern Caribbean Sea, simultaneous measurements of Hs and U10 were made at Buoy 42056 by the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) (for the location of this buoy and Wilma's track, see http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/2005/wilma/). On the basis of these measurements, Figure 1 is presented, which indicates that

Formula 2
Figure 1

Figure 1. Relation between Hs and U10 at 42056 during Wilma.


Since the correlation coefficient (R = 0.95) is very high or the coefficient of determination (R2) = 0.90, meaning that 90% of the linear variation between Hs and U10 can be explained, Equation (2) is thus recommended for estimating Hs from U10 or vice versa under hurricane conditions.

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