8 and 9 sec while more severe fall and winter wave conditions showed a higher 

 proportion of longer period waves. 



74. The distribution of wave directions for the year, based on visual 

 observations (Figure 16), revealed that waves approached the north side of the 

 pier 41 percent of the time, the souths ide 49 percent, and approximately 

 shore-normal 10 percent. However, when wave heights exceeded 2 m at the 

 seaward end of the pier, the waves approached 47 percent of the time from the 

 north, 40 percent from the south, and 13 percent normal to shore. 



75. Seasonal variation of wave direction is shown in Figure 17. The 

 northerly tendency during winter and fall and the southerly tendency during 

 spring and summer are consistent with wind distributions discussed previously. 

 Present versus past years 



76. Wave height and period distributions for 1983 were similar to the 

 combined 1980 through 1982 distributions. Figure 18 compares the heights and 

 Figure 19 compares the periods for gage 625. There was a tendency for wave 

 periods of 9 sec or longer to occur more often during the year. Seasonal 

 distributions of wave heights showed that a relatively severe January through 

 March was offset by a mild October through December. 



77. Wave direction distribution for 1983 was similar to prior years, as 

 can be seen in Figure l6b. Resultant wave height and direction values in 

 Table 6 show that monthly consistency is lower than seasonal and annual. 



All years combined 



78. The 4-year data set between 1980 and 1983 provides the most com- 

 plete description of the wave climate at the FRF. Figure 20 indicates that 

 for the lower 97 percent of the wave heights for gages 620 and 625, the dis- 

 tributions are approximately the same. However, for wave heights greater than 

 approximately 2.5 m, the Waver ider shows a greater proportion of higher waves. 

 Figure 21 indicates that spatial differences in wave period were small, except 

 that there was a higher percentage of 5- to 6-sec waves at the nearshore 

 Baylor than at both other sites. 



79. The Joint distributions of wave height versus period for gages 620 

 and 625 are shown in Tables 7 and 8. The distributions are based on over 

 4,670 observations, and the values presented can be converted to percent by di- 

 viding by 10. Higher waves are generally associated with longer wave periods. 



80. Seasonal distributions of wave height and period for gage 625 are 

 shown in Figures 22 and 23, respectively. Both heights and periods vary with 



43 



