exceeded 10 ra/sec 14.5 percent of the time, and these winds blew primarily 

 from the northeast quadrant. 



68. Present versus past years . There was a tendency for winds to blow 

 more often from the northeasterly directions during 1983 (Figure 7). The dis- 

 tribution is similar to 1982, while during prior years there were more north- 

 westerly winds. The more frequent northeasterly winds occurred during January 

 through March and October through December, while seasonal distributions for 

 April through September are very nearly the same as for prior years. Monthly 

 differences between 1983 and prior years are emphasized in Table 5. 



69. Combination of all years . Annual and seasonal distributions of 

 winds for the combined years 1980 through 1983 are presented in Figure 9. Of 

 the 5,250 observations, over 6 percent exceeded 10 m/sec. For those speeds in 

 excess of 10 m/sec, 44 percent occurred during October through December and 



32 percent during January through March. 



Waves 



70. This section presents summaries of wave data collected at the FRF. 

 A review of the wave conditions during 1983 and a comparison with previous 

 years is followed by a discussion of the wave climate for I98O through 1983. 

 Appendix B contains summaries for each gage which include height and period 

 distributions, wave direction distributions, and persistence tables. A dis- 

 cussion of individual major storms is given in Part IV, and Appendix D con- 

 tains hourly wave data for times when the heights R^ exceeded 2 m at 

 the seaward end of the FRF pier. 



Present data year, spatial variation 



71. The distribution of wave heights for all three gages operated dur- 

 ing the year is shown in Figure 10. For a given frequency of occurrence, wave 

 heights were highest at the gage located 3 km from shore (gage 620), second at 

 the pier end (gage 625), and lowest at the landward end of the pier (gage 615) 

 This pattern of variation (decrease of wave height with depth) is consistent 

 with previous years' data. Refraction, bottom friction, and wave breaking 

 contribute to the observed differences in height. Wave height statistics for 

 the staff gage (gage 615) located at the landward end of the pier in shallow 

 water were considerably different than the other gages. In all but the very 



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