82 



FREQUENCY OF WAVE CONDITIONS 



Table 21. — Average percentage frequencies of low and high seas and swells in the 

 South Atlantic within approximately 300 miles of the coasts of South America and 

 of Africa in J uly and August 



Table 22. — Average percentage frequencies of low and high seas and swells in the 

 South Atlantic within approximately 300 miles of the coasts of South America and 

 of Africa in January and February 



NORTH PACIFIC 



Summer. — The available data vary even more widely in number 

 from one unit area to the next for the Pacific than for the Atlantic, 

 and they are less numerous for most of the squares, especially along 

 the equatorial belt. There are enough, however, to show that the re- 

 gional variation in the relative frequency with which seas of dif- 

 ferent heights are encountered in summer is fundamentally the same 

 for the one ocean as for the other, as is to be expected from the fact 

 that the wind systems are essentially similar over the two. Thus, it 

 is only to the north of about latitude 50° N. that high seas are reported 

 in August in the Pacific as often as 20 percent of the time. In the 

 Pacific, too, as in the Atlantic, northward from about latitude 35° N., 

 high seas are not only considerably more common near the coast in 

 the east, at that time of year, than in the west, but they are reported 

 about as frequently from southern Alaska to the offing of Los Angeles 

 (5 to 17 percent) , as from Ireland southward along Europe and north- 

 west Africa to the vicinity of Cape Verde. Also high seas are about 

 as frequent along the Pacific shores of Japan and of the Kuriles (2 to 

 7 percent), as along the eastern United States, north of Florida, or 

 along Xova Scotia. 



