The magnitude and direction of the littoral current is plotted as a 

 vertical line; the length represents current speed in feet per second. 

 The position of this line above or below the center line of the graph 

 designates whether the current was upcoast or downcoast. The diamond 

 symbol represents a calm condition or zero current recorded by the 

 observer. Littoral currents in excess of 4 feet per second are con- 

 sidered erroneous and therefore this current speed has been chosen as a 

 limit in plotting. It is assumed that currents of greater than 4 feet 

 per second generally represent rip currents that may have developed at 

 the time the observer was making measurements . A rip current is defined 

 as a narrow current flowing seaward from the shore. It is the return 

 movement of water piled up on the shore by incoming waves and wind. A 

 rip current consists of three parts: (1) The "feeder' currents" flowing 

 parallel to the shore inside the breakers. (2) The "neck" - where the 

 feeder currents converge and flow through the breakers in a narrow band 

 or "rip". (3) The "head" - where the current widens and slackens outside 

 the breaker line. 



Below the Littoral Current Graph are plots showing the percent 

 occurrence of wind and wave direction. These are computed and drawn 

 on a monthly basis . 



The plots at the bottom of the graphs show seasonal variations of 

 the beach level. Plotted are the daily recorded observations of the 

 elevation of the beach berm, the distance of this berm from the fixed 

 reference pole, and the slope of the foreshore. 



When the reference poles were installed on the beaches, the eleva- 

 tions of the poles were arbitrarily chosen and therefore the elevations 

 of the berm as plotted and recorded are in no way related to any standard 

 datum. The plots are presented simply to show the daily activity or 

 inactivity of the beach berm. A monthly average of these beach charac- 

 teristics was computed, and that average was plotted on the 15th of each 

 month. The symbol X represents that monthly average. All variables are 

 plotted as they were recorded on CERC Form 32 without any corrections 

 or editing. 



c. Surf Observations 



Monthly averages of the wave height and wave period and the 

 percent occurrence of the type of wave were computed for each station. 

 A yearly average was also calculated. These computations are presented 

 in tabular form in Appendix D. 



In computing the average wave height and period, wave heights of 

 20 feet or greater and wave periods of 50 seconds or longer were con- 

 sidered as errors and were not included in the average computations . 

 No other editing of data was done and the figures represent straight 

 averages . 



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