Tropical Storm Gerda crossed the coastline near Palm Beach on 6 September 

 1969, before returning to sea to reach full hurricane force as it travel- 

 ed north. Tropical Storm Felice passed within 90 miles (144 kilometers) 

 to the southwest of the study area on 13 September 1970. Hurricane Beth 

 began as a tropical storm just off the southeast coast of Florida on 10 

 August 1971. Hurricane Dawn was also spawned off the southeast Florida 

 coast, and briefly moved through the study area in its tropical depres- 

 sion stage on 5 September 1972. None of these storms had a significant 

 effect on the study area, other than locally heavy rain and winds of 9 

 to 14 miles (14 to 22 kilometers) per hour. 



At least 21 other significant storms affected the area during the 

 study. These storms lasted from 2 to 3 days with winds out of the east- 

 em quadrant at 18 to 24 miles (29 to 38 kilometers) per hour. The three 

 most significant storms were on 24 and 25 October 1969, 23, 24, and 25 

 December 1971, and 9 to 12 February 1973. 



3. Wave Observations. 



Breaker height roses summarizing height and direction data from each 

 of the three sites are plotted in Figures 26, 27, and 28. Monthly breaker 

 height roses from Boca Raton are plotted for each year in Appendix E. 



Wave direction was recorded at the seawardmost line of breakers, 

 where most of the wave refraction had already occurred. From all of the 

 observations made during this study, the greatest percentage of breakers 

 approached the shoreline from the sector between 85° to 95° (Fig. 14); 33 

 percent were from this sector at Boca Raton and Hollywood, and 34 per- 

 cent were from this sector at Jupiter. 



Since only a very small angle from a shore-normal breaker approach is 

 required to initiate longshore current flow, it is convenient to refine 

 direction notation further than this 10° sector in order to predict the 

 direction of the longshore sediment transport. Table 1 lists the breaker 

 direction distributions within the 11° sector, 85° to 95°, for those obser- 

 vations made according to the protractor method. These data indicate that 

 more than 50 percent of the observations that would normally be grouped in 

 sector 3 represent directions of approach other than shore-normal. 



Table 1. Breaker direction distributions from protractor method.' 



Locality 



Total obsns. 



Total obsns. 



Relative frequency 





85° to 95° 



<85° 



85° to 89° 



90° 



91° to 95° 



>95° 



Jupiter 



58 



33 



0.12 



0.14 



0.26 



0.17 



0.31 



Boca Raton 



234 



97 



0.12 



0.12 



0.21 



0.08 



0.45 



Hollywood 



62 



31 



0.12 



0.18 



0.20 



0.11 



0.34 



'Data collected from August 1972 to June 1973. 



43 



