FIELD MEASUREMENTS OF SWELL OFF THE ISLAND OF ARUBA

Intermittently during the winter, swell and associated breakers appear along a beach on the lee side of Aruba, an island off the coast of Venezuela in the Trade Winds. It has been suggested that 14- to 15-sec waves, generated by winter storms off the mid-Atlantic coast of North America, propagate so...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wilson,W. Stanley
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
ARUBA
CARIBBEAN SEA
DATA PROCESSING
INSTRUMENTATION
PERIODIC VARIATIONS
Physical and Dynamic Oceanography
SOURCES
SWELLS
TRADE WINDS
WATER WAVES
WEST INDIES
WIND
WINTER
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Summary:Intermittently during the winter, swell and associated breakers appear along a beach on the lee side of Aruba, an island off the coast of Venezuela in the Trade Winds. It has been suggested that 14- to 15-sec waves, generated by winter storms off the mid-Atlantic coast of North America, propagate southward to Mona Passage where they are refracted. They then propagate across the Caribbean Sea toward Aruba where they are refracted off the northwest tip of the island and arrive on the leeward coast. Measurements of swell off the beach have been conducted during March 1969. The instrumentation, field procedure, and computational methods are described. Spectra, directions of travel for the swell, and probable generation areas are presented. Reasonable agreement is found between measured swell directions and directions deduced from wave-ray patterns. All evidence obtained is consistent with the hypothesis of a North Atlantic generation area. (Author) Errata sheet inserted.