440 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 15

Worldwide Measurements of Directional Wave Spreading

GEORGE Z. FORRISTALL AND KEVIN C. EWANS
Shell International Exploration and Production, Rijswijk, the Netherlands
(Manuscript received 26 July 1996, in final form 13 May 1997)

ABSTRACT
The directional spreading of waves is important for both theoretical and practical reasons. Enough measure-
ments have now been made to draw conclusions about the behavior of wave spreading at sites in different
climatic regimes. The measurements presented here of the directional spreading of fetch-limited waves agree
in general with those of M. A. Donelan et al., but additional evidence is also found to support the conclusion
of I. R. Young et al. that the spreading function is bimodal at high frequencies. The spreading factor f is defined
to be the square root of the in-line variance ratio defined by R. E. Haring and J. C. Heideman. This spreading
factor gives an integrated measure of the degree of directional spreading in the wave spectrum and predicts the
reduction in the in-line particle velocities under waves due to direction spreading. The value of f is 1 for
unidirectional waves and 0.707 for omnidirectional waves. For fetch-limited conditions, f is essentially constant
at 0.906. Results from the Exact-NL wave model agree reasonably well with this value, but an operational third-
generation model produces directional spreading that is broader than the observations. The statistics of f are
calculated from thousands of hours of measurements from many sites around the world. The median value of
f is 0.880 for low latitude monsoon conditions and 0.867 for tropical cyclones. For extratropical storms, f
decreases with latitude. Regressions on the statistics for high waves give f 5 0.944 for latitude 368 and f 5
0.869 for latitude 728. The latitudinal dependence of f is caused by the facts that waves are generally more
broadly spread at sites close to the center of a storm and that storm tracks are concentrated at high latitudes.

1. Introduction The low-order trigonometric moments can also be

Following the publication of the Marine Board (1982)
report that urged the development of reliable and in-
expensive systems for the measurement of directional
wave spectra, a number of such instruments have be-
come available and widely used. The amount of direc-
tional wave data available for study has grown rapidly
in the last few years.
Much of the literature on directional wave measure-
ments has concentrated on the question of how to extract
the highest directional resolution from the limited in-
formation available with standard instrumentation. For
most instruments, it is possible to compute only the first
two trigonometric moments of the spreading function
at each frequency. The mean wave direction as a func-
tion of frequency can be calculated from the first trig-
onometric moments, and most applications of direc-
tional measurements have used only these mean direc-
tions. For example, Cavaleri et al. (1991), Guillaume
(1990), and Khandekar et al. (1994) compared wave
directions from numerical wave models to measure-
ments.
Corresponding author address: Dr. George Z. Forristall, Shell In-
ternational Exploration and Production, Postbus 60, 2280 AB Rijs-
wijk, the Netherlands.
E-mail: gforrist@euronet.nl
used to calculate measures of wave spreading at each
frequency, and wave spreading is at least as important
as the mean wave direction for many applications. In
particular, the peak particle velocities under waves be-
come smaller as the waves become more spread. The
American Petroleum Institute’s (API 1993) recom-
mended practices take this reduction into account by
applying a ‘‘spreading factor’’ to the kinematics cal-
culated from two-dimensional wave theories. The API
recommends using a spreading factor in the range 0.85–
0.95 for tropical storms and 0.95–1.00 for extratropical
storms. One of the main purposes of this report is to
produce more specific values of the spreading factor for
use in designing structures.
We begin by showing how the spreading factor should
be calculated from directional wave measurements. A
theoretical development shows that the velocity reduc-
tion under waves due to directional spreading is equal
to the square root of the in-line variance ratio defined
by Haring and Heideman (1980). In contrast to the API,
which recommends the use of a spreading factor ‘‘cor-
responding to the spectral peak period,’’ we find that
the spreading factor must be calculated by integrating
the velocity variances over the entire wave spectrum.
This conclusion is confirmed by an analysis of the ve-
locity measurements made under very high waves in the
North Sea made by Jonathan et al. (1994).

q 1998 American Meteorological Society

APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS 441

Fetch-limited waves under steady winds are the sim-
plest case of wave generation. Measurements of the di-
rectional spectra of fetch-limited waves have been made
by Mitsuyasu et al. (1975) and Hasselmann et al. (1980)
using pitch-and-roll buoys, by Donelan et al. (1985)
using an array of 14 wave staffs, and by Holthuijsen
(1983) using stereophotography. Some of our measure-
Using linear wave theory, the wavenumber k m is related
to the frequency f m by
(2p f m ) 2 5 gk tanh(k m d), (4)
where d is the water depth and g is the acceleration of
gravity. Again, from linear theory, the u and y com-
ponents of the wave particle velocity are given by

OOA
` `
ments are also in clearly identifiable fetch-limited con-
ditions that include higher waves than the earlier studies, u(x, y, z, t) 5 mn Q m (z) cosu n cosc mn (x, y, t)
m51 n51
and we compare the directional spectra in those cases
to the earlier measurements. We also compare the mea- (5)

OOA
sured directional spreading functions to those predicted ` `
by third-generation numerical wave models. y (x, y, z, t) 5 mn Q m (z) sinu n cosc mn (x, y, t),
The core of our study is the analysis of thousands of m51 n51

hours of directional wave measurements made at many (6)

sites around the world. The measurements were made
with a wide variety of instruments, but the consistency where
checks we have been able to make indicate that most coshk m z
of the instruments give the same value for the spreading Q m (z) 5 2p f m (7)
sinhk m d
factor in the same conditions. This again contradicts the
API (1993), which states that ‘‘pitch–roll buoys tend to gives the attenuation of the velocity with depth with z
significantly overestimate spreading, while directional measured upward from the bottom.
data from a two-horizontal-axis particle velocimeter are
thought to provide a good estimate of spreading.’’ We 1) COVARIANCES
believe that the API conclusion was largely based on The covariance functions between h, u, and y can be
the Wave Direction Measurement Calibration Project calculated by taking cross products among Eqs. (1), (5),
(WADIC) experiment (Allender et al. 1989). Our rean- and (6), and passing from summation to integration to
alysis of the WADIC data shows that in this particular produce

E E
case, the particle velocimeter underestimated spreading ` p
due to interference from its support structure.
C hh (t ) 5 cos2p f t df S( f, u) du, (8)
The statistics of the wave-spreading factor show sig- 0 2p

E E
nificant dependence on the location of the site and the
` p
wave height. In particular, a clear dependence on the
latitude of the site is evident at the sites exposed to C hu (t ) 5 Q( f ) cos2p f t df S( f, u) cosu du,
0 2p
extratropical storms. This dependence can be related to
physical factors in wave generation and propagation. (9)

E E
The report closes with recommendations of appropriate ` p
spreading factors for use in engineering design. C hy (t ) 5 Q( f ) cos2p f t df S( f, u) sinu du,
0 2p

2. Calculation of the spreading factor (10)

a. Definitions from linear wave theory
Expand the sea surface h as a Fourier series in the form
C uu (t ) 5 E
0
`

Q 2 ( f ) cos2p f t df E2p
p

S( f, u) cos 2u du,

OOA
` `
(11)
h(x, y, t) 5 cosc mn (x, y, t), (1)

E E
mn
m51 n51 ` p

where the phase function cmn is given by C yy (t ) 5 Q 2 ( f ) cos2p f t df S( f, u) sin 2u du,

0 2p

c mn (x, y, t) 5 k m x cosu n 1 k m y sinu n 2 2p f m t 1 f mn

(12)
(2)
and

E
and f m is the wave frequency, k m is the wavenumber, `
u n is the direction toward which the wave is propagating, C uy (t ) 5 Q 2 ( f ) cos2p f t df
and f mn is a phase angle. The Fourier coefficients A mn 0

E
are related to the one-sided directional spectrum of the
p
sea surface S by
3 S( f, u) sinu cosu du. (13)
S( f m , u n )D f Du 5 A mn
2
/2. (3) 2p
442 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 15

2) CO- AND QUADSPECTRA are normally distributed with standard deviations a uu

and a y y .
The covariance function between, say, u and y can
also be calculated from the co- and quadspectra using
C uy (t ) 1) THE WAVE-SPREADING FACTOR

E E
` `
5 c uy ( f ) cos2p f t df 1 q uy ( f ) sin2p f t df ,
0 0
(14)
so from inspection of Eqs. (8)–(13), the cospectra are
It is always possible to find a coordinate system (a,
b) in which the velocity components are statistically
independent—that is, a ab 5 0. The angle between the
(x, y) and (a, b) coordinate systems is given by
2a u2y
tan2u p 5 , (24)

E p a uu
2
2 a yy2

c hh ( f ) 5 S( f, u) du, (15) where u p is defined as the principal wave direction. In

2p
the new coordinate system, the velocity variances at zero

c hu ( f ) 5 Q( f ) E p

2p
S( f, u) cosu du, (16)
lag are given by

a aa
2
1 2
5 (a uu 1 a yy
2
)1r (25)

E p 2
c hy ( f ) 5 Q( f ) S( f, u) sinu du, (17) and
2p

E
1 2
p
a bb
2
5 (a uu 1 a yy
2
) 2 r, (26)
c uu ( f ) 5 Q 2 ( f ) S( f, u) cos 2u du, (18) 2
2p
where

c yy ( f ) 5 Q 2 ( f ) E 2p
p

S( f, u) sin 2u du, (19) 1 2

r 2 5 (a uu
4
2 a yy
2 2
) 1 (a u2y ) 2 . (27)

and The velocity distribution in the principal wave direction

c uy ( f ) 5 Q 2 ( f ) E2p
p

S( f, u) sinu cosu du, (20)

is normal with standard deviation a aa . If all of the wave
energy were in one direction, then the velocity distri-
bution would have a standard deviation a given by
and the quadspectra are zero.
a 2 5 a uu
2
1 a yy
2
5 E
0
`

Q 2 ( f ) df E
2p
p

S( f, u) du. (28)
b. Velocity distributions
Wave spreading thus reduces the rms velocity in the
The variance and covariance of the velocity com- principal wave direction by the factor
ponents at zero lag are defined as

E E
a aa
` p
f5 . (29)
a 5 C uu (0) 5
2
uu Q ( f ) df
2
S( f, u) cos u du,
2 a
0 2p
Since the distributions of the velocity components re-
(21) main Gaussian, the velocity at any probability level is

E E
` p reduced by the same factor. We define f to be the wave-
a yy
2
5 C yy (0) 5 Q 2 ( f ) df S( f, u) sin 2u du, spreading factor. It lies in the interval [1/Ï 2, 1]. We
0 2p will show that it is a robust and useful measure of the
overall directional spread of a sea state. Our spreading
(22) factor is the square root of the ‘‘in-line variance ratio’’
and defined by Haring and Heideman (1980), and our prin-

E
cipal wave direction is equal to their ‘‘dominant wave
`
direction.’’
a u2y 5 C uy (0) 5 Q 2 ( f ) df
0

E p 2) DISTRIBUTION OF MAXIMUM SPEED

3 S( f, u) sinu cosu du.
2p
If the phases f mn are uniformly distributed as expected
for linear wave theory, then the velocity components
(23) The peaks of the in-line velocity are defined as the
absolute values of the maxima between two zero cross-
ings of the velocity component in the principal wave
direction. These peak values have a Rayleigh probability
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS 443

TABLE 1. Lower and upper bounds of the speed distribution for because they assumed that the phase angles of the en-
P(j, f) 5 0.001. velopes of the velocity components were both the same.
f j u /j The upper and lower bounds are reasonably close
0.80 0.847 together. For example, if we set
0.85 0.880
0.90 0.917
P l (j, 1) 5 P l (j l , f) 5 P u (j u , f) 5 0.001, (33)
0.95 0.958
we immediately have j l /j 5 f. A numerical solution
for j u gives the results in Table 1. The upper bound for
the peak velocity in 1000 peaks is thus 1%–5% greater
distribution. If we normalize the peak velocities S by a than the lower bound.
so that
j 5 S/a, (30) c. An example from the Tern platform in the North
then the probability that the normalized peak velocity Sea
in the principal direction is greater than j is given by The Tern oil production platform is located northeast
of the Shetland Islands in 167 m of water. The instru-
1 2
j2
P l (j, f ) 5 exp 2 . (31) mentation on the platform includes two wave height
2f 2 sensors and a Marsh–McBirney electromagnetic current
The maximum speed in a spread sea is not necessarily meter at 41-m depth below mean water level. Several
in the principal wave direction, but may be somewhat severe storms have been recorded by the instrumenta-
off that axis. Nolte and Hsu (1979) show that the dis- tion. Jonathan et al. (1994) give more details on the
tribution of maximum speed has a lower bound of P l (j, instrumentation and the waves in some of these storms.
f) and an upper bound of Figure 1 shows the speed distribution from 9 h of data
from 2300 UTC on 3 January 1993 to 0700 UTC on 4

1 2 1 2
f2 j2 January 1993. The hourly significant wave height during
P u (j, f ) 5 exp 2 this span ranged from 11.07 m to 12.73 m. This range
2f 2 2 1 2f 2
is just slightly greater than expected from natural sam-

11
2f 2 12
exp 12
2(1 2 f )2
12f 2
j 2 pling variability if the significant wave height was ac-
2
. 2
(32) tually constant.
The solid line in Fig. 1 shows the speed peak distri-
Forristall et al. (1978) mistakenly stated that Eq. (32) bution for unidirectional waves—that is, Eq. (31) is
was the distribution of speed rather than an upper bound evaluated with f 5 1.0. The variance and covariance

FIG. 1. Velocity distribution at Tern, 3–4 January 1993.

444 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 15

of the velocity components at zero lag were computed give only the first few moments of the spreading func-
directly from the time series using an expression of the tion, as defined in the next section.
form

O u (t ).
N
1 1) TRIGONOMETRIC MOMENTS OF THE SPREADING
a uu
2
5 2
n (34)
N n51
FUNCTION

Then f was computed from Eqs. (25) to (29) for the Define the spreading function H( f, u) by
hourly data segments. For the 9 h of data, f ranged
S( f, u) 5 S( f )H( f, u), (35)
from 0.866 to 0.892, with an average of 0.874. The
dashed lines in Fig. 1 are the upper and lower bounds where

E
of the speed distribution calculated from Eqs. (31) and p
(32) using the average value of f. H( f, u) du 5 1. (36)
The velocities were normalized using Eq. (30) with 2p
a from the hour of the speed measurement. The speed
peaks, that is, the peaks of the modulus of the velocity Then following Longuet-Higgins et al. (1963), expand
vectors, were found for the same time intervals as the H( f, u) in the Fourier series:
in-line component of the velocity and used the same

5 O [a ( f ) cosnu 1 b ( f ) sinnu]6 .
`
normalization. The normalization eliminates any errors 1 1
H( f, u) 5 1
from imperfections in the current meter calibration or p 2 n51
n n

linear wave theory and isolates the effect of direction-

ality. (37)
The sample distribution of the in-line velocities Inserting this expansion into Eqs. (9)–(13) gives
agrees closely with the theoretical lower bound distri-
bution, that is, the in-line velocities are reduced from c hu ( f ) 5 Q( f )S( f )a1 ( f ), (38)
the value they would have in a unidirectional sea by the c hy ( f ) 5 Q( f )S( f )b1 ( f ), (39)
factor f. The sample distribution of the speed is slightly
higher than that for the in-line velocity and agrees close- 1
ly with the theoretical upper-bound velocity. c uu ( f ) 5 Q 2 ( f )S( f )[1 1 a2 ( f )], (40)
2
It would be appropriate to use the distribution for the
speed, given approximately by the upper-bound distri- 1
c yy ( f ) 5 Q 2 ( f )S( f )[1 2 a2 ( f )], (41)
bution, for the calculation of forces on a single pile. But 2
for calculation of the forces on a structure made up of
many members, the distribution of the in-line velocity and
is more appropriate, since the instantaneous directions 1
of the particle velocities will vary across the structure c uy ( f ) 5 Q 2 ( f )S( f )b2 ( f ). (42)
2
in directionally spread seas. For engineering purposes,
the reduction in velocity due to directionally spread seas The standard method of estimating a directional spec-
can thus simply be taken to be the factor f. trum from a wave staff and current meter or from a
pitch-and-roll buoy is to calculate the cospectra using
the fast Fourier transform and invert Eqs. (38)–(42) to
d. Calculation of f from the directional spectrum give a1 , a 2 , b1 , and b 2 , which can be thought of as the
The previous section has demonstrated that the re- first- and second-order trigonometric moments of the
duction in particle velocity due to directional spreading spreading function.
is described by the spreading factor f, which is cal- By definition, the variances and covariance of the
culated from the variance and covariance of the velocity velocity components are given by

E
components. The most direct method of computing the `
1
variance and covariance is from summation of the time a uu
2
5 Q 2 ( f )S( f )[1 1 a2 ( f )] df , (43)
series as in Eq. (34). In many cases, however, we may 2 0

E
wish to compute the spreading factor at a depth other `
than that at which velocity measurements were made, 1
a yy
2
5 Q 2 ( f )S( f )[1 2 a2 ( f )] df , (44)
or we may be given a directional spectrum calculated 2 0
by some other means than particle velocity measure-
ments, such as a pitch-and-roll buoy or a wave hindcast. and
In these cases, the variances and covariances can be
calculated from the integrals in Eqs. (21)–(23). We do
not need the complete details of the directional spectrum
a u2y 5
1
2 E
0
`

Q 2 ( f )S( f )b2 ( f ) df . (45)

to perform these integrations, which is fortunate since The spreading factor f may thus be calculated given
most methods of estimating the directional spectrum only the second trigonometric moments of the spreading
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS 445

function. The factor Q 2 S in Eqs. (43)–(45) can be cal- force on a pile can then be calculated from Eqs. (43)–
culated either from the velocity measurements or from (45) with Q eliminated, using

E
measurements of wave elevation and Eq. (7). The latter `
method is generally preferable since velocity measure- 1
a uu
2
5 S( f )[1 1 a2 ( f )] df , (50)
ments are generally noisier than elevation measure- 2 0

E
ments. Furthermore, it allows the spreading factor to be
`
calculated at depths where no velocity measurements 1
were made. Using Eq. (7) also permits data from pitch- a yy
2
5 S( f )[1 2 a2 ( f )] df , (51)
2 0
and-roll buoys to be used in exactly the same way as
measurements from a current meter and wave staff. If and

E
the sensors are operating properly, either type of mea- `
surement will give the same values for the circular mo- 1
a u2y 5 S( f )b2 ( f ) df . (52)
ments as a function of frequency, and thus the same 2 0
value for the spreading factor.
In other words, the global spreading function is cal-
culated by integrating over the second trigonometric
2) THE SPREADING FACTOR INTEGRATED OVER moments of the spreading function over frequency,
DEPTH weighted by the power spectrum. This intuitively simple
definition also appears to be the most generally useful
Using Eqs. (43)–(45) gives the spreading factor ap-
definition for engineering use since it gives the force
propriate for calculating the reduction of velocity due
reduction on a drag-dominated structure. This definition
to spreading at one particular depth. For many purposes,
of the spreading function will be used for all of the
it is preferable to have a more global view of the spread-
calculations in the rest of this paper.
ing. The drag force on a cylinder is proportional to the
square of the velocity, so the total force F on a vertical
cylinder in deep water is proportional to the integral of 3) CIRCULAR MOMENTS
the velocity squared over depth:

E 0 The vector mean of the directional distribution u1 can

F} u 2 dz. (46) be calculated from the lowest Fourier coefficients as
2`
u1 ( f ) 5 tan 21 [b1 ( f )/a1 ( f )]. (53)
So from Eq. (5),
Then following Kuik et al. (1988), we define the cen-
F} E 0

1O O A
` `

Q m (z) cosu n cosc mn (x, y, t) 2

2

dz.
tered Fourier coefficients as

E
mn
2` m51 n51 2p

(47) m1 ( f ) 5 cos[u ( f ) 2 u1 ( f )]H( f, u) du, (54)

0
If we expand the square and interchange the summation
and integration, the integration will be over terms of the 5 [a12 ( f ) 1 b12 ( f )]1/2 , (55)
form

Fij } E 0

Q i (z)Q j (z) dz. (48)

m2 ( f ) 5 E
0
2p

cos2[u ( f ) 2 u1 ( f )]H( f, u) du, (56)

2`
5 a2 ( f ) cos2u1 ( f ) 1 b2 ( f ) sin2u1 ( f ), (57)

E
In the deep water limit, 2p

E 0 n1 ( f ) 5 sin[u ( f ) 2 u1 ( f )]H( f, u) du, (58)

Fij } (2p) f i f j (z)
2
e (k i1k j)z
dz 0

2`
5 b1 ( f ) cosu1 ( f ) 2 a1 ( f ) sinu1 ( f ), (59)
g fi fj
5 2 . (49) and

E
f i 1 f j2 2p

Since the energy containing part of the wave spectrum n2 ( f ) 5 sin2[u ( f ) 2 u1 ( f )]H( f, u) du, (60)
is over a fairly small range of frequencies, f i ø f j , and 0

F ij ø g/2, a constant. Integration of the velocity squared 5 b2 ( f ) cos2u1 ( f ) 1 a2 ( f ) sin2u1 ( f ). (61)

over depth thus effectively removes the frequency de-
pendence in the factor Q so that the drag force is ef- Kuik et al. (1988) then demonstrate that the best defi-
fectively independent of wave frequency for a given nitions for the circular standard deviation s, the skew-
wave height. The spreading factor appropriate for the ness m 3 , and the kurtosis m 4 are, respectively,
446 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY
s ( f ) 5 {2[1 2 m1 ( f )]}1/2 ,
2n2 ( f )
m3 ( f ) 5 , (63)
{[1 2 m2 ( f )]/2} 3/2
and
6 2 8m1 ( f ) 1 2m 2 ( f )
m4 ( f ) 5 . (64)
s 4( f )
Given s, m 3 , and m 4 or the central moments, the spread-
ing factor f can be found by calculating m 2 from Eq.
(64) and n 2 from Eq. (63). Then a 2 and b 2 can be found
by solving Eqs. (56) and (60) to get
a2 ( f ) 5 m 2 ( f ) cos2u1 ( f ) 2 n2 sin2u1 ( f )
and
b2 ( f ) 5 m 2 ( f ) sin2u1 ( f ) 1 n2 cos2u1 ( f ).
Other definitions of the circular moments are possi-
ble; for instance, those given by Mardia (1972) are
slightly different from Eqs. (62) through (64). Care
should be taken to invert the equations that were actually
used to produce the circular moments.
It is somewhat surprising that the spreading factor
cannot be found given only the standard deviation of
the spreading function. The problem is that s is based
on the first trigonometric moments of the spreading
function rather than the second moments, which actually
show the amount of energy in the principal wave di-
rection. Given only s, it is probably most reasonable
to assume that the skewness is zero and the spreading
function is a normal distribution for which the kurtosis
m 4 ( f ) 5 3. Then Eqs. (62)–(64) give n 2 ( f ) 5 0 and
3 seas under constant winds. The form of the directional
m 2 ( f ) 5 1 2 2s 2 ( f ) 1 s 4 ( f ).
2 distribution for fetch-limited sea states has been the sub-
The approximation in Eq. (67) has the disadvantage that
m 2 reaches a minimum of ⅓ at s 2 5 ⅔. The minimum
value of the spreading function is thus f 5 Ï ⅔ rather
than Ͻ, as would be expected with omnidirectional
spreading. Thus, it is probably better to express the
spreading function as a normal distribution and make
the approximation
m2 ( f ) 5 E
2p
p
H( f, u) cos2u du
E
`
1 2
1 2u 2
ø exp cos2u du
sÏ2p 2`
2s 2
5 exp(22s 2 ).
e. Summary
The spreading factor f gives the fraction of the wave
energy in the principal wave direction. It is calculated
as the square root of the in-line variance ratio given by
VOLUME 15
(62) Eq. (29). The variances can be conveniently calculated
by integrating the second trigonometric moments of the
directional spreading function over frequency as given
in Eqs. (50)–(52).
The spreading factor defined here has the advantage
that it can be calculated accurately from the information
produced by commonly available measuring systems
such as pitch-and-roll buoys or electromagnetic current
meters. Despite the fact that these systems do not have
very good directional resolving power and thus cannot
give the details of the directional spreading function,
they do give its second moments and thus the spreading
factor. If the waves are unidirectional, a pitch-and-roll
buoy will show that f 5 1.
(65) The spreading factor is robust in the face of calibra-
tion errors in the measurements since it depends only
on the ratio of the in-line and total variances. Essentially
(66) all that is required is that the two axes of the measure-
ment system have the same (linear) response. Since the
definition in Eqs. (50)–(52) weights the integration by
the power spectrum, pitch-and-roll buoys and electro-
magnetic current meters will give the same spreading
factor. This equality is in contrast to the results that
would be obtained if the variances were calculated di-
rectly from the time series given by the instruments.
The velocities would then be weighted by an additional
factor of f 2 , and the tilts would be weighted by f 4 . This
weighting to the higher frequencies in the spectrum
would lower the spreading factor since the higher fre-
quency waves generally have broader spreading.
3. Fetch-limited waves
We begin by considering the directional distribution
for the simplest case of wave generation: fetch-limited
(67)
ject of a number of investigations, including the well-
known ones of Mitsuyasu et al. (1975), Hasselmann et
al. (1980), and Donelan et al. (1985). Descriptions of
the directional distributions proposed in these studies
are given in the following sections, but in view of the
fact that these distributions are all unimodal and there
is evidence now that fetch-limited sea states may have
bimodal directional distributions at frequencies above
the spectral peak frequency, we include a section on a
bimodal distribution based on data presented by Ewans
(1995) and include this distribution in our comparisons.
State-of-the-art, third-generation wave models calculate
the nonlinear wave–wave interaction source term ex-
plicitly and do not rely on a specific empirical form of
the directional distribution. We include two such mod-
(68) els—Exact-NL and PHIDIAS—for comparison with the
empirical forms.
a. Proposed directional distributions
1) MITSUYASU DISTRIBUTION
Mitsuyasu et al. (1975) measured directional wave
spectra with a cloverleaf buoy at open sea locations in
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS 447

the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean and in a bay on 

 12
4.06
f
the east coast of Japan. Meteorological data were col- 6.97 f , 1.05 f p ,
lected from a tending ship near each observation station. fp
s5  (72)
9.771 ff 2
They chose five datasets for estimating the directional m

distribution, with wind speeds ranging from 7 to 10 m f $ 1.05 f p ,

s21 and significant wave heights from 0.74 to 2.34 m.  p

The cloverleaf buoy enables the first four pairs of the where m has a dependence on wave age as follows:
coefficients in Eq. (37). However, the higher-order co-
efficients, which are available from the measurement of
1c 2
U10
the wave curvature, were not used because they were m 5 22.33 2 1.45 2 1.17 . (73)
thought to be inaccurate. Thus, the data used by Mit- p

suyasu et al. (1975) were the same as if the measurement The directional distribution defined by Eqs. (69), (72),
instrument was a pitch-and-roll buoy. and (73) will be referred to as the Hasselmann distri-
The Mitsuyasu distribution is based on the so-called bution in the remainder of this paper.
cosine2s form:

1 2
u2u 3) DONELAN DISTRIBUTION
H( f, u) 5 A(s) cos 2s , (69)
2 Donelan et al. (1985) report an analysis of data re-
where A(s) is a normalization factor to ensure Eq. (36) corded with an array of 14 wave staffs in Lake Ontario
is met, and u is the mean wave direction at frequency and a similar, scaled-down version in a large laboratory
f. Like u, the parameter s is a function of frequency. tank. The wave staffs were mounted on a tower 1 km
Based on their data, Mitsuyasu et al. (1975) proposed offshore in a water depth of 12 m. Meteorological data
the following parameterization for s: were also collected from the tower and with a buoy 11
km from the tower in deeper water. Eighty-five field
 recordings and seven laboratory recordings were used
 12
5
f
sp f , fp, in the analysis. Donelan et al. (1985) do not report the
fp absolute range of wind speed and significant wave
s5  (70)
s 1 ff 2
22.5
heights associated with their analysis dataset, but the
p f $ fp, field data were in the range 0.83 , U/c p , 4.6 and the
 p
laboratory data in the range 7.2 , U/c p , 16.5.
where sp is the value of s at the frequency of the spectral Based on the theoretical directional characteristics of
peak fp given by freely propagating, second-order Stokes wave groups,
Donelan et al. (1985) proposed the following directional
22.5 distribution:
1 2
U10
s p 5 11.5 , (71)
cp H( f, u) 5 0.5b sech 2b(u 2 u ), (74)
where U10 is the wind speed at 10 m above sea level where
and c p 5 g/2pf is the deep water phase speed at the


 1f2
1.3
spectral peak. The directional distribution defined by f
Eqs. (69)–(71) will be referred to as the Mitsuyasu dis- 2.61 0.56 , f / f p , 0.95,
fp
tribution in the remainder of this paper. 21.3

b 5 2.281 2



0.96 , f / f p , 1.6, (75)
f p
2) HASSELMANN DISTRIBUTION

Hasselmann et al. (1980) report an analysis of data 1.24 f / f p , 1.6.

recorded during the JONSWAP experiment. The direc-
tional wave data were collected with a pitch-and-roll
buoy located in 22 m of water 52 km off the island of
Sylt in the North Sea. Meteorological data were also
collected at this site with a meteorological buoy located
27 km offshore in a water depth of 18 m. The dataset
chosen for analysis ranged in wind speed from 6.8 to
15.0 m s21 and significant wave heights from 0.55 to
1.88 m.
The Hasselmann distribution is also based on the co-
sine2s form (69) with the following parameterization
for s:
The Donelan et al. (1985) dataset extended to only
f / f p 5 1.6. Thus, the constant value of b 5 1.24 for
frequencies greater than 1.6 was assumed.
The directional distribution defined by Eqs. (74) and
(75) will be referred to as the Donelan distribution in
the remainder of this paper.
4) DONELAN–BANNER DISTRIBUTION
Based on high-frequency stereo photography, Banner
(1990) concluded that b was not a constant at values
448 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY
of f / f p 5 1.6, as specified by Donelan et al. (1985),
and proposed that
b 5 10{20.410.8393 exp[20.567 ln(( f / f p) 2)]}, f / f p . 1.6.
(76)
Thus, the Donelan–Banner distribution consists of the
Donelan distribution to f / f p 5 1.6 and the Banner def-
inition for b [Eq. (76)] for f / f p . 1.6.
5) MAUI DISTRIBUTION
Ewans (1995) reports an analysis of wave directional
measurements made with a Datawell WAVEC buoy
moored near to the Maui-A platform, 32 km off the west
coast of the North Island of New Zealand, in a water
depth of 110 m. The wave measurements were accom-
panied by wind measurements made with a Lambrecht
anemometer installed on the platform at a height of 95
m above sea level.
At this location, southeast wind events produce well-
defined, fetch-limited wind–seas, enabling a population
of 77 fetch-limited directional spectra to be established.
The 77 spectra had significant wave heights ranging
between 0.54 m and 4.2 m, mean wave periods between
3.3 s and 6.9 s, and had associated vector average wind
speeds ranging from 4.6 to 18.3 m s21 , and inverse wave
ages, U10 /c p , ranging from 0.70 to 1.4.
Ewans estimated directional distributions of the 77
spectra using both maximum entropy and maximum
likelihood methods, and in both cases found the distri-
butions were unimodal at the peak frequency, consistent
with previously proposed distributions, but were bi-
modal at frequencies above the spectral peak. This result
supported those of Young et al. (1995), who observed
bimodal spectra in wave data collected with a wave
gauge array in Lake George, Australia. The lake had a
water depth of 2 m and the reported waves had inverse
wave ages in the range 1.7 , U10 /c p , 3; the Maui
results thus extended the Young et al. observations to
open ocean conditions.
Based on curve fits to the Maui data, Ewans has pro-
posed a double-peaked form for the directional distri-
bution, based on a symmetric double Gaussian function
defined as follows:
H( f, u)
O `
1 7) WAM
5
Ï8p s ( f ) k52`
3 [exp(21/2[(u 2 u m1 ( f )22pk)/s ( f )] 2 )
1 exp(21/2[(u 2 u m2 ( f )22pk)/s ( f )] 2 )],
(77)
where s ( f ) is the angular width and is a measure of
the spreading of each component, and u m1 ( f ) and u m2 ( f )
are the locations of the peaks, centered at equal angles
on each side of the mean wave direction. The parameters
VOLUME 15
of the distribution are defined by two functions of the
normalized frequency—one that models the angular sep-
aration of the peaks and another that models the shape
of the angular width parameter as follows:
Du 5 14.93 for f , f p ,
21
1 122
f
Du 5 exp 5.453 2 2.750 for f $ f p , (78)
fp
where Du is the angular separation, um2 2 um1, of the
peaks, and
27.929
12
f
s 5 11.38 1 5.357 for f , f p ,
fp
22
12
f
s 5 32.13 2 15.39 for f $ f p . (79)
fp
Thus, the angular separation is nonzero at all fre-
quencies but set equal to the fixed value of 14.938 for
f , f p . Functions (77), (78), and (79), constitute the
symmetric double Gaussian distribution. These func-
tions describe a distribution that is unimodal at and be-
low the peak frequency, but splits into two components
above the peak frequency, the angular separation of the
peaks increasing with increasing frequency. We refer to
this distribution as the Maui distribution in this paper.
6) EXACT-NL
It has been proposed (e.g., Hasselmann et al. 1980;
Donelan et al. 1985) that nonlinear wave–wave inter-
actions may play an important part in determining the
wave directional distribution. The results of Banner and
Young (1994) and Young et al. (1995) have confirmed
this to be the case. In addition, Banner and Young
showed that the directional distribution predicted by a
numerical model that gives a full solution to the non-
linear source term, the so-called Exact-NL model, is
unimodal at f / f p 5 1 but bimodal at higher frequencies,
and this prediction was generally supported by the field
observations reported in Young et al. (1995). We present
results in this paper from a directional distribution, cal-
culated using such a numerical model, and refer to it as
the Exact-NL directional distribution.
Wave hindcasting is now generally accepted as a valid
approach to producing a long-term wave database from
which design wave criteria can be derived. Third-gen-
eration models such as the WAM model (Hasselmann
et al. 1988) are now widely used for both wave hind-
casting and forecasting, but for computational efficien-
cy, the nonlinear interactions source term is approxi-
mated in these operational models. While there is plenty
of evidence (e.g., Hasselmann et al. 1988) that this does
not seriously compromise the accuracy with which the
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS
FIG. 2. Circular rms spreading as a function of frequency for the model distributions.
significant wave height is predicted, there has been no
systematic evaluation of the spreading factor, and it is
therefore of interest to compare the shape of the direc-
tional spreading associated with such models with Ex-
act-NL and with the proposed empirical distributions.
We present fetch-limited runs of the PHIDIAS model,
which is an implementation of the WAM algorithm (van
Vledder et al. 1993).
b. Circular rms spreading
1) COMPARISON OF THE PROPOSED DISTRIBUTIONS
The circular rms spreading, s ( f ), defined in Eq. (62)
is a useful measure of spreading. It does not require any
a priori assumption on the shape of the directional dis-
tribution, and it is often available from hindcast studies
and wave directional measurement programs. A plot of
s ( f / f p ) for each proposed distribution is given in Fig.
2. All curves show a spreading minimum near the spec-
tral peak frequency ( f / f p 5 1.0) and increasing spread-
ing at higher and lower frequencies. The Mitsuyasu and
Hasselmann distributions are given for an inverse wave
age of 0.8 and 1.2. The Mitsuyasu curves reflect the
large range of directional spreading with wave age that
occurs for that distribution; the Hasselmann curves
show only a variation at frequencies above the peak
with wave age; while the Donelan and Donelan–Banner
curves show the absence of any variation of wave
spreading with wave age and also generally lower
spreading values than the Mitsuyasu and Hasselmann
distributions. Donelan et al. (1985) speculated that the
lower spreading of their distribution when compared
449
with the Mitsuyasu and Hasselmann distribution was
due to the measurements with three-component systems,
such as the pitch-and-roll buoys used by Hasselmann et
al. (1980) and Mitsuyasu et al. (1975), not providing as
much resolution as the 14-element spatial array used by
Donelan et al. (1985). The analysis reported by Young
(1994) demonstrates how progressively increasing the
number of measurement elements progressively increas-
es the resolution of the directional distribution, but the
circular rms spreading parameter s is a function only
of a1 and b1 and should be estimated as well with a
well-calibrated pitch-and-roll buoy as any spatial array
with three or more elements. The Maui data support
this. The dotted line in Fig. 2 is the Maui distribution
and the plus symbols give the average of the 77 Maui
spectra. Except for estimates at frequencies less than the
peak frequency, the Maui data indicate lower spreading
than the Donelan distribution, which was derived from
a 14-element array. Both the Exact-NL and PHIDIAS
distributions are broadly consistent with the empirical
distributions, but the Exact-NL spreading is lower than
the PHIDIAS spreading at higher frequencies.
The Maui parameterization and data are also consis-
tent with the other distributions but show rather less
spreading at the peak and at higher frequencies. A sim-
ilar plot given by Ewans (1995) but with the Maui data
grouped into inverse wave age categories indicated that
the fetch-limited Maui data were not dependent on wave
age, which is consistent with the observations of Don-
elan et al.
For practical purposes it is often useful to refer to the
integrated circular rms spreading, s, of the sea state
defined by
450 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY
FIG. 3. Integrated circular rms spreading as a function of wave age for the model distributions.
s 5 Ï2(1 2 m1 ), (80)
where m1 5 Ï a 1 b1 , and a1 and b1 are the weighted
2 2
1
integrals of the first two Fourier coefficients, defined as
follows:
E
`
a1 5 E( f )a1 ( f ) df .
0
b1 5 E 0
`
E( f )b1 ( f ) df .
In the case of the Mitsuyasu, Hasselmann, Donelan–
Banner, and Maui distributions, the omnidirectional fre-
quency spectrum, E( f ), was assumed to take the JON-
SWAP form, with parameters as defined by Hasselman
et al. (1973)—that is, with the Phillips parameter and
peak frequency defined by the wind speed and fetch,
and the peak shape parameters set equal to the JON-
SWAP constants.
Plots of s for each of the distributions and the Maui
data are given in Fig. 3. The effects seen in the fre-
quency-dependent circular rms spreading s ( f / f p ) are
also seen in Fig. 3. The Mitsuyasu values show a large
range, decreasing with increasing wave age; the Has-
selmann curve shows a much smaller range, but still a
gradual decrease with wave age; and the Donelan and
Donelan–Banner curves show no dependency on wave
age, with the Donelan distribution giving the slightly
lower constant value of 27.38. The Maui parameteriza-
tion gives a constant value of 27.68, which is slightly
larger than the Donelan values, but less than the Banner,
Exact-NL, Hasselmann, and PHIDIAS curves. We have
VOLUME 15
only an Exact-NL calculation of s for one value of the
wave age, but the results of Banner and Young (1994)
indicate that s decreases slightly as wave age increases.
Their results also show that the details of the source
function parameterization have a significant influence
on the spreading. In contrast, the PHIDIAS model pro-
duces a slight increase in s over the limited range of
wave ages for which the calculations were made.
2) DIRECTIONAL SPREADING FACTOR
The curves of f( f / f p ) for the proposed distributions
are plotted in Fig. 4. They demonstrate similar behavior
to the circular rms spreading curves, with the exception
of the sidelobes about the peak that occurs in some of
the curves. These sidelobes result from the contribution
to the variance along the principal wave direction by
wave energy traveling at angles greater than 908 to the
principal wave direction. Physically, f is directly pro-
portional to the ratio of the wave variance in the direc-
tion of the principal wave direction, var p , to the total
wave variance; so wave energy traveling opposite to the
principal wave direction also contributes to var p . Thus,
while this wave energy is traveling at large angles rel-
ative to the principal wave direction, and will have a
high circular rms spreading accordingly, it causes var p
to increase and hence f to increase.
Figure 4 shows that although the distributions are
similar in shape, their values differ significantly. The
Exact-NL, PHIDIAS, and Hasselmann distributions
have similar values in the vicinity of the spectral peak
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS 451

FIG. 4. Spreading factor as a function of frequency for the model distributions.

( f / f p 5 1), but are significantly lower than the Donelan
and Maui distributions.
The calculation of forces for engineering purposes
requires the directional spreading factor integrated over
the spectrum, as defined in Eqs. (50)–(52). To perform
this, the omnidirectional frequency distribution was as-
sumed to take the JONSWAP form, with parameters as
defined by Hasselmann et al. (1973), in the same way
as for the calculation of s.
Plots of f as a function of wave age for each of the
distributions and the Maui dataset are given in Fig. 5.
Some interesting contrasts are evident when this figure
is compared with Fig. 3. In terms of f, the Maui dis-
tribution shows less directional spreading by compari-

FIG. 5. Integrated spreading factor as a function of wave age for the model distributions.
452 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY
son with the Donelan–Banner and Exact-NL distribu-
tions, which is opposite to that indicated by s. The
different behavior for the two measures of spreading is
due to differences in the shapes of the directional spread-
ing functions.
The effects seen in the frequency-dependent s ( f ) are
also seen in Fig. 5. The Mitsuyasu values show a large
range—from the theoretical minimum of 0.707 to the
theoretical maximum of 1.0. The Hasselmann curves
show a much smaller range, but still a gradual increase
with wave age, with values ranging from 0.85 to 0.87.
The Donelan–Banner, Donelan, and Maui curves show
no dependency on wave age and have values of 0.903,
0.907, and 0.906, respectively. The Maui data have a
mean value of 0.910. The Exact-NL calculation gives
a spreading factor of 0.887, nearly as large as the recent
measurements, but the spreading factors from the PHID-
IAS 3G model are significantly lower than the mea-
surements.
c. Discussion
Young (1994) cites reports of investigations into the
development of the directional spectrum under fetch-
limited conditions using a spectral model with a full
solution to the nonlinear source term. These studies con-
clude that the directional spreading is almost completely
controlled by nonlinear wave–wave interactions, with
atmospheric input playing only a very minor role. This
suggests that any dependence of directional spreading
on wave age should be small. Young (1994) points out
the small range of wind–sea wave ages involved in the
Mitsuyasu data, bringing the accuracy of the strong de-
pendence on wave age in the Mitsuyasu formulation into
question. The strong wave age dependence of the Mit-
suyasu spreading formulation is not supported by other
measurements or by the numerical wave model exper-
iments, and Young concludes that the directional spread-
ing distributions are more likely to conform to the Don-
elan or Hasselmann formulations.
The Hasselmann and Mitsuyasu formulations are in
reasonable agreement over the parameter range common
to both measurement sets, but both distributions are
broader than the Donelan formulation and also the Maui
results. Young (1994) performs numerical experiments
that show that improvements in the spectral resolution
available from three element systems, such as a pitch-
and-roll buoy, can be achieved with spatial arrays that
have more than three elements. This result is reasonably
well known and is given as an explanation for the Do-
nelan et al. (1985) results producing a narrower spread-
ing than the Mitsuyasu and Hasselmann distributions.
However, the Maui data were recorded using a pitch-
and-roll buoy, and they show directional spreading val-
ues that are narrower than the Hasselmann and Mitsuy-
asu formulations and are in fact in better agreement with
the Donelan–Banner distribution. Since our definition
of the directional spreading factor depends only on the
VOLUME 15
second moments of the spreading function, a properly
functioning three-element system measures it as accu-
rately as a spatial array with many elements.
On the basis that nonlinear wave–wave interactions
control the directional spreading, it would appear that
the Donelan–Banner and Maui distributions give more
realistic estimates of the directional spreading values
for fetch-limited sea states. For these formulas there is
no dependence on wave age and, therefore, under fetch-
limited conditions, a sea state with a short fetch and,
for example, a significant wave height of 1 m has the
same directional spreading factor as the sea state further
down the fetch with a 10-m significant wave height. For
the particular case of fetch-limited waves, we thus pro-
pose that a good estimate for the directional spreading
factor is 0.906, the average of the Donelan–Banner and
Maui measured values.
4. Data sources and processing
The number of directional wave measurements has
greatly increased over the last few years. There are now
enough good quality observations to make the calcu-
lation of meaningful statistics for different storm types
and intensities possible. Figure 6 shows the sites where
the datasets used in this study were collected. The sites
are all on the continental shelf or slope, but the water
depths are generally greater than 100 m, so that refrac-
tion or shoaling should have little effect on the waves.
The sites cover a wide range of geographical areas from
the Tropics to the Arctic.
Tables 2, 3, and 4 give more details of the datasets.
The tables are divided into locations dominated by ex-
tratropical storms, tropical storms, and a tropical area
(northwest Borneo) under the influence of seasonal
monsoon winds. The first column of the tables gives the
names of the sites and the next two columns give their
locations. The time of the measurements is given in the
form of months per year. For most sites, the time is
given as a span of several months or years, but the data
at some sites, particularly for tropical storms, were col-
lected over a few days in the month indicated. Most of
the sites had nearly continuous records at a 1- or 3-h
recording interval. The instruments and data types are
explained in the following sections.
a. Instruments
A wide variety of instruments have been used to mea-
sure the directional properties of waves. In shallow wa-
ter, arrays of pressure transducers or wave staffs have
been popular. Satellite and radar sensors can also mea-
sure directional wave spectra. All of the data considered
in this report, however, came from in situ sensors in
deep water. Some of these sensors were mounted on
deep water oil production platforms and others were on
floating buoys.
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS 453

FIG. 6. Locations of wave-spreading data are shown as the filled circles.

1) HUV (WAVE STAFF AND CURRENT METER)
Since their development fast response current meters
have been used with wave staffs to estimate the direc-
tional wave spectrum. Electromagnetic current meters
were first used by Bowden and White (1966) in the
intertidal zone at the mouth of the Mersey River.
Acoustic current meters, pressure transducers, and la-
ser wave staffs were mounted on the Edda platform in
the central North Sea as a part of the comprehensive
WADIC experiment described by Allender et al. (1989).
WADIC also included a thorough comparison of the
pitch-and-roll buoys that were available at the time of
their experiment in 1985. Allender et al. (1989) com-
bined data from the array of five lasers and five pressure
cell/current meter triplets to form their ‘‘best estimate
data set (BEDS).’’ Due to instrument malfunctions, most
estimates used only three lasers. Directional spreading
at low frequencies was calculated from the current me-
ter/pressure cell triplets and the spreading at high fre-
quencies was calculated from the laser array.
All of the other HUV measurements listed in Tables
2 and 3 used electromagnetic current meters manufac-
tured by Marsh-McBirney, Inc. Baylor inductive wave
staffs were used except for the measurements at Tern,
where an EMI laser was used.
2) NORWAVE
The Norwave is a 2.75-m buoy with a Datawell Hippy
120-A pitch-and-roll sensor. It was manufactured by
Bergen Ocean Data. In the comparisons by Allender et
al. (1989), this buoy gave broader directional spreading
than most of the other instruments. This directional
broadening was apparently due to electronic noise that
periodically appeared in the signal. We suspect that this
noise was due to some problem with the electronics on
this particular deployment of the buoy. Nevertheless,
we will see that the wave-spreading factors observed at
Haltenbanken with this type of buoy were lower than
those at any other site.
3) WAVEC
The WAVEC is a 2.5-m buoy manufactured by Da-
tawell, again with a Datawell Hippy 120-A sensor.

TABLE 2. Extratropical storm sites, negative latitudes, and longitudes in the Southern Hemisphere and western hemisphere, respectively.

Site Latitude Longitude Time Instrument Data type

Nordkappbanken 728009 318009 5/88–5/90 Norwave Fourier
Nordkappbanken 728009 318009 5/90–5/92 WAVEC Fourier
Haltenbanken 658509 78349 3/80–3/88 Norwave Fourier
Tern 618169 08559 1/92–1/93 HUV Time series
North Cormorant 618149 18099 1/91–5/95 WAVEC Fourier
Fulmar 568309 28079 11/81 HUV Time series
WADIC 568289 38069 9/85–1/86 HUV,buoys Fourier
Auk 568249 28039 1/91–5/95 WAVEC Fourier
46050 44.68 2124.58 11/91–6/92 3–m discus Fourier
44025 40.38 273.28 4/91–6/92 3–m discus Fourier
Maui 2398369 1738239 10/86–11/87 WAVEC Time series
44001 38.48 273.68 9/90–4/91 3–m discus Fourier
44015 37.58 273.48 9/90–4/91 3–m discus Fourier
46042 36.88 2122.28 4/88–6/92 3–m discus Fourier
44014 36.68 274.88 10/90–6/92 3–m discus Fourier
454 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 15

TABLE 3. Tropical cyclone sites.

Site Latitude Longitude Time Instrument Data type

SP62 298059 2888449 9/74, 8/75 HUV Moments
Buccaneer 288539 2948429 9/73 HUV Moments
Cognac 288479 2898039 9/79 HUV Moments
EI331 288149 2918439 9/74, 8/75 HUV Moments
Bullwinkle 278539 2908549 8/92, 10/95 HUV Time series
North Rankin 2198359 1168089 2/91, 2/92 DWR Time series

Wave-spreading estimates from it were similar to the
BEDS estimate in the Allender et al. (1989) dataset,
although there were relatively few data points in the
comparison since the buoy capsized several times in the
WADIC experiment. The mooring systems for the buoy
have since been improved, and the data return for the
WAVEC deployments listed in Tables 2 and 4 was quite
good.
4) DIRECTIONAL WAVERIDER
The directional waverider (DWR) is also manufac-
tured by Datawell, but it uses a three-axis accelerometer
instead of a pitch-and-roll sensor. The signal processor
on the buoy performs a double integration of these mea-
surements to produce the north and east displacements
of the buoy in the wave orbits along with its heave.
Barstow (1991) found that the data from the DWR com-
pared well to that from the WAVEC. O’Reilly et al.
(1996) compared a DWR to measurements from an array
of six pressure transducers mounted on the Harvest plat-
form off California and found excellent agreement in
the circular rms spreading integrated over the swell band
from 0.06 to 0.14 Hz. Most of their measurements were
in a long period swell with significant wave heights less
than 4 m.
5) 3-M DISCUS (NATIONAL DATA BUOY CENTER)
The 3-m discus buoy is the standard hull used by the
U.S. National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) for directional
wave measurements. The pitch-and-roll sensor in the
buoy is a Datawell Hippy 40 Mark II. Anctil et al. (1993)
compared the measurements from one of these buoys
with wave staff and current meter measurements on the
Bullwinkle platform. The sea states during the com-
parison were low, with H s always less than 2 m. For
significant wave heights greater than 1 m, the directional
widths measured by the buoy and the platform agreed
reasonably well. The platform measurements had slight-
ly wider spreading.
O’Reilly et al. (1996), however, found that the inte-
grated circular rms spreading measured by an NDBC
buoy was significantly different from the spreading mea-
sured by the pressure transducer array on the Harvest
platform. The buoy measurements were biased 68 higher
than the measurements from the pressure transducer ar-
ray. This bias is roughly equivalent to the spreading
factor measured by the buoy being biased 0.035 too
low.
b. Data types
The columns labeled ‘‘data type’’ in Tables 2–4 show
the form of the data that was input to our analysis. In
some cases, the data were available in several different
forms. In those cases, we used the form of the data that
had the least processing done to it. For example, if time
series of pitch and roll or horizontal velocity was avail-
able, we calculated the Fourier coefficients of the
spreading function from them and the spreading factor
from the Fourier coefficients. If the Fourier coefficients
were available, as on the CD-ROMs published by the
NDBC, they were used. Finally, if only the moments of
the spreading function were given, they were converted
to Fourier coefficients.
The length of almost all of the data records was be-
tween 20 and 30 min. A few of the datasets, including
the Fulmar and Tern data as well as the hurricane data
from the Gulf of Mexico, had data records 1 h long.
5. Results
a. Extratropical storms
Figures 7–11 are representative scatterplots of the
spreading factor f plotted against the significant wave

TABLE 4. North coast of Borneo.

Site Latitude Longitude Time Instrument Data type

Kinebalu 58279 1148469 2/91–11/92 WAVEC Fourier
Samarang 58269 1148469 8/92–2/94 DWR Fourier
M Field 58229 1128119 7/92–3/94 DWR Fourier
Baram 48459 1138529 5/88–8/90 WAVEC Fourier
Baram Delta 48459 1138529 11/92–2/93 DWR Fourier
Baronia 48409 1138409 11/93–3/94 DWR Fourier
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS 455

FIG. 7. Scatterplot of the directional spreading factor f against significant wave height at Auk.
The curves give the median, 75% and 90% exceedence levels, and maximum value of f for 0.5-
m-wide wave height bins.

FIG. 8. Scatterplot of the directional spreading factor f against significant wave height at North
Cormorant. The curves give the median, 75% and 90% exceedence levels, and maximum value of
f for 0.5-m-wide wave height bins.
456 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 15

FIG. 9. Scatterplot of the directional spreading factor f against significant wave height at
Nordkappbanken. The curves give the median, 75% and 90% exceedence levels, and maximum
value of f for 0.5-m-wide wave height bins.

FIG. 10. Scatterplot of the directional spreading factor f against significant wave height at buoy
46042. The curves give the median, 75% and 90% exceedence levels, and maximum value of f
for 0.5-m-wide wave height bins.
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS
FIG. 11. Scatterplot of the directional spreading factor f against significant wave height at buoy
46050. The curves give the median, 75% and 90% exceedence levels, and maximum value of f
for 0.5-m-wide wave height bins.
height. Each dot represents one data sample that is gen-
erally 20–30 min in length. Data for significant wave
heights less than 2.0 m are not plotted in most of the
figures because of the huge number of data points re-
quired. The scatter in the values of the spreading factor
is very large, particularly for low wave heights. The
values of f range from close to the theoretical minimum
of 0.707 to near the maximum of 1.
What accounts for the variability in the values of the
directional spreading factor of the observed sea states?
Clearly, the directional spreading will increase if the
wind direction is varying quickly in either space and
time. Rapidly turning winds will produce low spreading
factors as the high-frequency waves follow the change
of direction of the wind while the direction of the low-
frequency waves lags behind (e.g., van Vledder and
Holthuijsen 1993). Thus, a sea state at a location ex-
periencing a local wind–sea associated with a fast trav-
eling tropical cyclone would be expected to have a lower
directional spreading factor than a sea state at a location
in a long and steady fetch of an extratropical cyclone.
Very low values of the spreading factor can also be
produced when waves from two or more storm systems
combine. Even if the individual modes of the spectrum
are relatively narrow, the spreading factor for the com-
bined sea will be small if the modes propagate in dif-
ferent directions.
Conversely, as a wave field propagates outside the
influence of the wind, the various directional compo-
nents would be expected to radially spread as they prop-
457
agate; so at a distant location from the source, the di-
rectional spreading factor could be higher than the value
of 0.906 for fetch-limited seas even if the waves at the
source were produced under perfect fetch-limited con-
ditions. Indeed, some active wind–sea states could be
expected to include swell components that have a prin-
cipal wave direction coincident to the wind–sea com-
ponent; this scenario would also produce directional
spreading factors larger than 0.906.
The orography of the location can also be expected
to influence the possible values of the directional spread-
ing. For example, a coastline near to a location may act
as a filter to some wave directions and tend to decrease
the amount of spreading at the location for particular
mean wave directions. Shallow water effects can also
be expected to affect the value of the spreading. For
example, a decrease in spreading would be expected at
progressively closer locations to the coast for a shoaling
bathymetry, while a complicated seabed topography
might increase the spreading at some locations. The
measurements discussed in this paper were made in wa-
ter deep enough and far enough from coastlines that
these effects should be small. They should, however, be
considered carefully for any coastal locations.
The lines in Figs. 7–11 show statistics of the data
points calculated over 0.5-m bins in significant wave
height. The median value, 75 and 90 percentile values,
and maximum are shown. The median values increase
significantly with increasing wave height, while the 75
and 90 percentile lines are more nearly constant. These
458 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY
FIG. 12. Median values of the directional spreading factor f as a function of significant wave
height for the sensors deployed in the WADIC experiment.
features of the statistics can be explained by the fact
that most of the low values of the spreading factor occur
for low wave heights. The maximum per bin decreases
for the highest wave heights because there are fewer
samples per bin.
1) THE WADIC DATASET
The WADIC experiment (Allender et al. 1989) was
particularly important because it was the most thorough
side-by-side comparison of directional wave sensors
ever made. Figure 12 shows the median values of the
directional spreading factor as a function of wave height
for most of those sensors. BEDS is constructed from
the current meters and laser wave staffs, CM2 is the
current meter at 15-m depth, and Array is the array of
laser wave staffs. All of the buoys measured pitch and
roll and differed mainly in the shape of the surface-
following float. The Marex buoy was 3 m in diameter,
the Seatex Wavescan buoy and the Bergen Ocean Data
Norwave were 2.75 m in diameter, and the Endeco
Wavetrack was 0.76 m.
The mean values of the spreading estimated from the
various sensors differ considerably. These differences
are consistent with the comparisons in the scatterplots
given by Allender et al. (1989). The spreading factors
calculated from the Endeco buoy are clearly too small,
possibly because of relatively high noise and problems
with the mooring line. The data from the Norwave buoy
were corrupted by regularly occurring noise, which bi-
ases the spreading factor to the low side.
VOLUME 15
The spreading factors from the BEDS data are much
higher than those from any of the buoys or the wave
staff array. BEDS was created using the current meters
for the low-frequency Fourier components and the wave
staff array for the high-frequency components. The
agreement between the spreading factors from BEDS
and current meter 2 in Fig. 12 indicates that the current
meter data dominated the spreading estimates since the
low-frequency partition contained most of the wave en-
ergy. The large differences between the two platform
based estimates of the wave spreading prompted us to
take a close look at the raw time series of the mea-
surements.
Figure 13 shows 20 min of velocity measurements
made by current meter number 2 at 15 m below mean
sea level at 1400 UTC 2 November 1985. Each point
in the plot is the tip of the horizontal projection of the
velocity vector at a 2-Hz sampling rate. Plots of wave
particle velocities displayed in this way usually show
bilateral symmetry since the velocities under wave
troughs are roughly equal and opposite to the velocities
under the crests. A scatterplot of the u and y components
of the velocity thus has an elliptical shape. The WADIC
data, however, are not elliptical and, for the cloud of
points to become elliptical, many more points would
have to be added to the left of the origin. There thus
appears to be a distinct and systematic deficit of veloc-
ities in the negative u direction. Most of the other storm
wave data plots from WADIC that we examined exhib-
ited similar velocity deficits, always in the same direc-
tion. The problem was most evident when the waves,
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS
FIG. 13. Horizontal velocities measured by current meter 2 (215
m) at WADIC at 1400 UTC 2 November 1985. Each plotted point
is the tip of a velocity vector sampled at 2 Hz by the acoustic current
meter.
and thus the orbital velocities and displacements, were
large.
There is a ready physical explanation for the missing
points in the negative u direction since the current me-
ters were mounted on a space frame tower hung off the
side of the Edda platform. The tower was in the positive
u direction in the local coordinate system, so flow to-
ward negative u was in the wake of the tower, and ve-
locities in that direction were reduced.
The interference from the tower has a strong effect
on the estimate of the wave-spreading factor. Rough
calculations indicate that if the crescent-shaped data
cloud in Fig. 13 were filled in to make an ellipse, the
spreading factor would decrease from about 0.95 to
0.90, and thus come into reasonable agreement with the
slope array and most of the buoy measurements made
at the same time. Because of this flow interference with
the current meter measurements in WADIC, we have
chosen to ignore the BEDS and current meter wave-
spreading estimates in our data summaries and use the
union of the Array, Marex, and Wavescan data to rep-
resent the wave spreading during WADIC.
2) OTHER COMPARISONS OF BUOY AND CURRENT
METER ESTIMATES
It is possible to compare the statistics of wave-spread-
ing measurements made with buoys and current meters
at two other locations in the North Sea, although the
individual measurements cannot be compared since they
were made at different times. The Fulmar current meter
459
measurements were made 12 km from the location of
the Auk buoy, and the Tern current meter measurements
were made 13 km from the North Cormorant (NC) buoy.
Only a few hours of the Fulmar and Tern measurements
were analyzed, but they were during very high waves.
Figure 14 compares the average values of the spreading
factor calculated from the instruments at these sites. The
Auk WAVEC agrees very well with the Fulmar current
meter and wave staff (‘‘huv’’) and the NC WAVEC
agrees very well with the Tern current meter and wave
staff.
The Fulmar and Tern current meters do not appear to
have had as much of a problem with platform interfer-
ence as the WADIC current meters. The Fulmar meters
were mounted on a taut wire loop stretched between the
deck and a horizontal platform member. The nearest
vertical platform member was about 10 m from the cur-
rent meters. Interference from the structure was thus
greatly reduced at the expense of some motion of the
mounting system. The Tern current meters were mount-
ed on vertical stand-offs about 3 m above horizontal
framing members. Although the horizontal member pre-
sumably affected the vertical component of the wave
orbital velocities, it apparently had little effect on the
horizontal velocities measured by the current meters.
Scatterplots of the measurements at both Fulmar and
Tern in the form of Fig. 13 have the anticipated bilateral
symmetry.
3) LATITUDINAL DEPENDENCE OF THE SPREADING
FACTOR
Figure 14 also shows a clear difference in the average
spreading factors measured near Auk and those mea-
sured near North Cormorant. The measurements must
reflect a real difference between the wave climates at
the two sites since the same type of buoy was used at
Auk and North Cormorant. Furthermore, the measure-
ments made with the current meters at Fulmar and Tern
during different years show almost the same difference
between the sites.
Inspection of plots similar to Figs. 7–11 for all of the
measurement sites revealed further differences between
the statistics of the spreading factors at those sites. To
our surprise, we found that these differences correlated
very well with the absolute value of the latitude of the
sites. Figure 15 shows the median: 75% and 90% values
of the spreading factor for significant wave heights over
5 m plotted as a function of the latitude of the mea-
surement site. Each measurement site is plotted as a
separate set of points. The straight lines in the figure
are simple linear regressions through the data points.
The data points show an almost monotonic decrease
with increasing absolute value of latitude, despite the
fact that the sites are in both Northern and Southern
Hemispheres and on both east and west margins of
oceans. Some of the sites are in semienclosed seas, and
others have full exposure to open ocean over at least
460 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 15

FIG. 14. Comparison of average spreading factors for buoys and current meters at sites in the
North Sea. Auk is close to Fulmar and North Cormorant is close to Tern. The buoys were WAVECs,
and huv denotes estimates from a wave staff and current meter.

FIG. 15. Statistics of spreading factors as a function of latitude. Only significant wave heights
greater than 5 m have been included in the statistics. The straight lines are simple linear regressions
through the data points.
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS
FIG. 16. Median spreading factor for significant wave heights greater than 5 m at buoys 46050
and 46042 off the west coast of the United States, plotted as a function of wave age.
one semicircle. Yet the most important geographical fac-
tor in determining the directional spreading of waves
seems simply to be the latitude of the site.
Most of the data points at lower latitudes in Fig. 15
come from measurements made by the NDBC 3-m dis-
cus buoys. If we accept the conclusion from the com-
parisons of O’Reilly et al. (1996) that the spreading
factor in these measurements is biased about 0.035 too
low, then the decrease in spreading factor with latitude
would be even stronger. In our analysis, however, we
accept all of the measurements at face value, partly be-
cause the spreading factors from the 3-m buoys are al-
ready so high. Many of them are, in fact, higher than
any of those measured at the Harvest platform by
O’Reilly et al.
We investigated a number of possible reasons for the
variation of the average spreading factor in high waves
from site to site. It seems reasonable that low-latitude
sites would receive more wave energy in the form of
swell from distant storms than high-latitude sites. Gen-
erally, the wave age defined as c p /U10 is a good measure
of wave development. Figure 16 shows median spread-
ing factors at two buoys off the west coast of the United
States plotted as a function of wave age. Only high
waves with significant heights greater than 5 m are in-
cluded in the statistics. There is some tendency for
young waves to have slightly smaller spreading factors,
but the spreading at the two sites is still different for
the same value of wave age. The lack of correlation
between the wave age and the spreading factor is not
461
too surprising since no correlation was found in the
measurements for fetch-limited waves discussed above.
We also tried an explicit calculation of the swell frac-
tion of the wave energy by calculating the Pierson–
Moskowitz (PM) spectrum for the wind speed at the
wave measurement site and ascribing all the energy in
the measured spectrum above the PM curve to swell.
There was a tendency for high spreading factors when
the swell fraction was very high, but the overall cor-
relation between swell fraction and spreading factor was
very poor.
Bimodal spectra are likely to have low spreading fac-
tors since there is a good chance that the different modes
have different directions of travel, but few of the di-
rectional spectra we examined in detail were obviously
bimodal. Figure 17 shows two fairly typical examples
from a storm in January 1993 in which a 963-mb low
tracked north of Scotland to northern Norway. The con-
tour plots of directional spectra were plotted from a
cosine power-law parameterization of the spreading
function at each frequency. Linear contour intervals
were chosen to emphasize the energy-containing part of
the spectra.
North Cormorant was closer to the center of the storm
and the waves were higher there than at Auk, which is
located farther south in the central North Sea. Both spec-
tra show some evidence of bimodality in frequency, but
there is no sign of any swell trains propagating in dif-
ferent directions from the wind sea in either of the spec-
tra. The spectra do not, in fact, appear different in any
462 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY
FIG. 17. Contour plots of directional wave spectra from North
Cormorant and Auk during a storm in January 1993. The contours
are autoscaled to the maximum energy density and plotted at linear
intervals. Higher contours are shown as darker lines.
obvious way except that the NC waves are spread more
broadly at every frequency, leading to a smaller spread-
ing factor.
We made an automated search for bimodality by cal-
culating the ratio of the average wave period to the peak
period of the spectrum. The spreading factor showed no
correlation with this ratio. We also plotted the spreading
factor against wind speed, wind direction, wave direc-
tion, and the variation in wind direction over several
hours. None of these factors explained the difference in
wave spreading between the measurement sites.
The one factor that did display some influence on the
spreading factor was the distance traveled by the waves.
Swell should become more tightly focused in both fre-
quency and direction when it travels a long distance,
but the wave age does not, in general, give a good
measure of the distance traveled by waves. There are
other factors related to the relative locations of the storm
centers and the measurement sites that could also influ-
ence the wave spreading. The isobars around a low have
greater curvature closer to the storm center, so the wind
direction changes more rapidly over the fetch there than
VOLUME 15
it does farther from the storm center. As the storm
moves, the wind direction at a fixed site also changes
more rapidly when the site is close to the center. The
results of these effects are difficult to see individually,
but a correlation between distance to the storm center
and the spreading function can be found.
To study the effect of storm distance on spreading,
we constructed Fig. 18 by studying the details of several
storms that had maximum significant wave heights over
5 m on the Pacific coast of the United States and in the
North Sea. The average spreading factor for the 12-h
period surrounding the maximum H s in these storms was
calculated. The distance to the storm center at the start
of the 12-h period was found by examining the synoptic
charts in the Global Historical Fields CD-ROM (Na-
tional Climatic Data Center 1994a). North Cormorant
is north of Auk and buoy 46050 is north of 46042, so
the storm centers are likely to be closest to North Cor-
morant and 46050, but there is considerable overlap in
the distances. For example, one storm did pass close to
46042 and produced waves with a low spreading factor
there. The correlation between the distance to the center
of the low (note the logarithmic scale) and the average
spreading factor at the peak of the storm is clear, al-
though there is considerable scatter.
The spreading factor tends to decrease with decreasing
distance from the storm center. For this fact to produce
the observed decrease of the spreading factor with latitude,
there must be more storms at high latitudes than at low
latitudes. This fact is commonly observed, but in order to
quantify it, we counted the number of storms in the Global
Tropical/Extratropical Cyclone Climatic Atlas CD-ROM
(National Climatic Data Center, 1994b) that passed
through the longitude band between 08 and 108W. We
selected this longitude band instead of a band 108 to the
east over the North Sea since the storm tracks in the North
Sea did not appear to be complete in the atlas. Figure 19
shows the number of storms that passed through 58 boxes
of latitude between 08 and 108W from November through
January. The cumulative number of storms with minimum
pressures lower than 950, 960, and 970 mb are shown.
The points are plotted with an abscissa in the middle of
the latitude box—for example, the points at 62.58 give the
number of storms that passed between 608 and 658. The
number of storms peaks at about 658N. This agrees quite
closely with the minimum in the spreading factor at Hal-
tenbanken (658509N) as shown in Fig. 15.
We conclude that the spreading factors for waves gen-
erated by extratropical storms are relatively low when the
center of the storm passes near a site. The average spread-
ing factor thus decreases at high latitudes, reaching a min-
imum at the latitude where storm tracks are most concen-
trated. While low spreading factors near the center of a
storm are intuitively reasonable, a detailed understanding
of the physical processes involved awaits controlled ex-
periments with a carefully verified hindcast model.
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS 463

FIG. 18. Average spreading factors for high waves at two sites in the North Sea and off the
Pacific coast of the United States as a function of the distance to the center of the storm.

FIG. 19. The number of storms that passed through boxes of 58 lat between 08 and 108 W from
November through January. The cumulative number of storms with minimum pressures less than
950, 960, and 970 mb is shown.
464 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY
FIG. 20. Spreading factors measured in tropical cylcones. The data points are averages over 0.5-
m bins in the individual storms, and the ‘‘average’’ curve is the average of the plotted points in
the same wave height bins.
b. Tropical cyclones
Since tropical cyclones are relatively rare, we have
much less data for them than for extratropical storms.
Each of the sites listed in Table 3 was under the influence
of tropical cyclones for only a few hours. The storms
that affected the sites in the Gulf of Mexico were Delia
(1973), Carmen (1974), Eloise (1975), Frederic (1979),
Andrew (1992), and Opal (1995). The Australian storms
were Daphne (1991), Ian (1992), Bobby (1995), Frank
(1995), Jacob (1996), and Olivia (1996).
The amount of data available varied widely from
storm to storm. For some of the early hurricanes in the
Gulf of Mexico, only a few hours of data surrounding
the storm peak were available, whereas continuous mea-
surements for several days with multiple buoys were
made in the recent Australian storms. There was a wide
variety of storm strengths and locations of the mea-
surement stations with respect to the storm track. All
of these variables affect the wave spreading. Before the
local wind increases significantly, most of the wave en-
ergy is likely to be swell with a fairly high spreading
factor. As the storm winds increase, so does the wind
sea, but there is also likely to be significant swell energy
still coming from the storm center. These bimodal spec-
tra have a lower spreading factor. We found that the
spreading factors in tropical storms were often lowest
several hours after the highest waves were recorded,
showing that the sea state was most confused then.
A thorough analysis of all of the factors that cause
changes in the spreading factor during a tropical cyclone
VOLUME 15
would be interesting and valuable, but it is outside the
scope of this study. For our purposes, we wish to get a
general measure of spreading in tropical cyclones by
appropriate averaging of the data. To give the same
weight to the data from each storm regardless of the
number of hours of measurements, we first averaged all
of the data for each particular storm in 0.5-m wave
height bins. These averages for the individual storms
are shown as the data points in Fig. 20. In most cases
the averages were over only a few measurement inter-
vals. The ‘‘average’’ curve in the figure is the average
of the plotted points in the same wave height bins. The
spreading factors for significant wave heights greater
than 4.5 m are somewhat smaller than those for waves
below 4.5 m, and the spreading factors for waves heights
greater than 9 m appear to be still somewhat higher, but
these high waves occurred in only a few measurement
intervals in one storm. Any tendency for the spreading
factor to increase for very high waves thus appears to
be very slight. The highest waves in a tropical storm
are experienced when the storm makes its closest ap-
proach to the measurement site. The wind and locally
generated seas are then at their highest, but there is still
a significant amount of swell traveling in a different
direction than the local seas. The local wind direction
also turns relatively rapidly at that time. These factors
combine to keep the spreading factor relatively low dur-
ing high waves.
The average of spreading factors for all of the data
points with wave heights greater than or equal to 5.0 m
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS
FIG. 21. Spreading factors measured in by the WAVEC at Baram off the northwest coast of
Borneo.
in Fig. 20 is 0.8571. The average for waves above 7.0
m is 0.8666, and the average for the few waves over
9.0 m is 0.8820. The average spreading factor for the
highest waves in each storm is 0.8529. These values are
just slightly less than for sites in the central North Sea,
which is somewhat surprising since it has usually been
thought that waves are much more broadly spread in
tropical cyclones. The range of the average spreading
factors from different storms is quite large. This vari-
ability is caused by the different combinations of sea
and swell in the different quadrants of a tropical storm.
A reasonably conservative reading of the data would
be to use 0.8666 in force calculations for extreme waves
in force calculations in tropical cyclones. This is at the
lower end of the range suggested in API RP2A-LFRD.
c. Monsoon conditions
A large amount of directional wave data collected off
the northwest coast of Borneo was available for this
study. The sites are near the equator, and tropical cli-
matic conditions prevail throughout the year. Winds and
waves are dominated by the progression of the Asian
monsoon. The southwest monsoon generally begins in
May or June and extends through October. Then the
northeast monsoon builds from the northern end of the
South China Sea and northeast or north winds and waves
prevail over the area during the winter months.
Figure 21 shows the spreading factors measured at
one representative site, Baram, using a WAVEC buoy.
It is immediately obvious that the wave climate is mild,
465
with the maximum significant wave height barely over
3 m. The median values of the spreading factor are
essentially flat with wave height, while the higher per-
centiles show some tendency to decrease with increasing
wave height.
Median values of the spreading function for all of the
sites off Borneo are shown in Fig. 22. All of the datasets
are remarkably similar to each other, with only the mea-
surements from the M Field standing out as including
higher waves and having slightly lower values of the
spreading factor. While all of the measurement sites
were in relatively deep water at least 50 m deep, the M
Field was considerably farther from the shore than the
other stations, about 200 km as opposed to 50 km.
Different instruments were used in different years at
two of the sites, so it is possible to make some com-
parison of the instrument response. The comparison
must be statistical since the instruments were not at the
same site at the same time, but the apparent stability of
the climate still makes the comparison valuable. The
Baram measurements were made with a WAVEC, while
the Baram D measurements were made with a Direc-
tional Waverider. Similarly, the Samarang 1 measure-
ments were made with a WAVEC and the Samarang 2
measurements were made with a Directional Waverider.
In both cases, the median values of the spreading factor
are very similar, which supports the conclusion that
these two wave buoys based on different principles give
the same results.
These sites appear to be so similar that the most rea-
sonable characterization of their spreading factors is
466 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY
FIG. 22. Median spreading factors measured at all of the sites off the northwest coast of
Borneo.
simply to put all of the data together and calculate its
statistics. The results are given in Table 5. The median
spreading value of 0.8800 is slightly less than the fetch-
limited value. The difference between the median and
90% values is small, which presumably reflects the rel-
atively uniform wave climate in this area.
6. Conclusions and recommendations
The square root of the in-line variance ratio defined
by Haring and Heideman (1980) gives the ratio between
the in-line component of the velocity under directionally
spread waves to the velocity under unidirectional waves
in a random sea. It is thus the part of the wave kinematics
factor defined in API RP2A-LFRD that is due to direc-
tional spreading, and we have defined it as the wave-
spreading factor, f. Wave particle velocity measurements
made during a period of high waves at Tern in the North
Sea showed that the in-line component of the velocity
distribution was indeed reduced by the factor f.
It is important to note that the spreading factor is
calculated by integrating the second trigonometric mo-
ments of the directional spreading function over the
wave spectrum since the velocity variances are the sum
TABLE 5. Statistics of the wave-spreading factor for monsoon
waves.
Median 0.8800
75% 0.8945
90% 0.9070
VOLUME 15
of the energy at all frequencies. If the spreading factor
at a particular depth is needed, then the spectrum should
be weighted by the attenuation factor derived from lin-
ear wave theory. For calculating the drag force on a
single pile or jacket structure, it is appropriate to simply
weight the second moments by the wave spectrum.
The spreading factor can be calculated from the in-
formation given by any of the systems used to measure
the directional properties of waves. Essentially all that
is needed is the ratio between the in-line and total vari-
ance of the wave energy, so it is not sensitive to the
absolute calibration of the instrument. Systems capable
of high-resolution definition of the directional spectrum
are not needed. NOAA 3-m discus buoys, for example,
measure spreading factors as high as 0.98 when they
are in highly focused swell.
Good evidence that the directional wave measurement
systems that are now in general use give accurate mea-
surements of the wave-spreading factor comes from the
consistency of the measurements that we have exam-
ined. Measurements of fetch-limited waves using a
WAVEC buoy off the coast of New Zealand gave almost
exactly the same value of the spreading factor as the
high-resolution wave staff array of Donelan et al.
(1985). The average values of the spreading factor mea-
sured by current meters and buoys at nearby sites in the
North Sea agree very well with each other, although the
measurements were made in different years. The av-
erage values from WAVEC and Directional Waverider
buoys deployed off the coast of Borneo also agree very
well with each other. Finally, except for two buoys with
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS
obvious noise problems and current meters subject to
interference from their mounting support, the systems
tested in the WADIC experiment were in agreement.
a. Fetch-limited waves
Several empirical descriptions of the directional
spreading function for fetch-limited sea states are avail-
able in the literature. Of these, that of Donelan et al.
(1985) was based on the highest resolution measurement
system—a 14-element wave staff array. Our buoy mea-
surements at Maui generally agree with Donelan’s re-
sults and show narrower spreading than the earlier work
of Mitsuyasu et al. (1975) and Hasselmann et al. (1980).
In agreement with Donelan et al., we find no evidence
that the directional spreading function depends on wave
age. The measurements give an average spreading factor
of 0.906 for fetch-limited seas.
The directional spreading function derived from the
Maui data is bimodal at frequencies somewhat above
the spectral peak. These observations confirm those of
Young et al. (1995), who found similar behavior using
a wave gauge array in Lake George, Australia. They are
also in agreement with high accuracy integrations of the
nonlinear interaction term in the wave evolution equa-
tion. Bimodal directional propagation may have impli-
cations for wave hindcast models.
Precise (Exact-NL) integrations of the wave evolution
equation give spreading functions that are similar to,
but slightly broader than the Donelan and Maui func-
tions. The approximate integration used in the opera-
tional third-generation WAM model, however, gives a
spreading factor of about 0.85, which is considerably
broader than the observations.
b. Latitudinal variation in wave spreading
The thousands of measurements we have examined
show great scatter in their calculated spreading factors,
but also large and systematic differences in the statistics
of the factor from site to site. At sites exposed to ex-
tratropical storms, there is a clear tendency for the
spreading factor to be lower, that is, for the waves to
be more widely spread, at higher latitudes. This ten-
dency is related to the facts that there are more storm
tracks at high latitudes and that the spreading factor
tends to be smaller when the site is close to the storm
center. Waves from distant storms are less spread be-
cause swell becomes more focused as it travels and be-
cause the wind direction changes less rapidly far from
the center of a low pressure system.
c. Recommended values for engineering design work
The statistics of the spreading factor in low-latitude
monsoon conditions and in tropical cyclones appear to
be rather simple. The statistics at all of the monsoon
sites are quite similar, and there appears to be no sys-
467
tematic variation of the spreading factor with wave
height. For engineering design, the overall median value
of 0.8800 can thus be used with confidence.
There are relatively few hours of tropical cyclone data
available, but the existing data does not show any strong
dependence on wave height or site. We thus recommend
using the average value of 0.8666 for waves over 7.0
m in engineering calculations. This value of the spread-
ing factor is at the lower end of the range suggested in
API RP2A-LFRD.
The situation for extratropical storms is more com-
plicated. There appear to be real variations in the spread-
ing factor with location and significant wave height. The
median spreading factor increases with significant wave
height at many of the sites. It would certainly be possible
to fit a curve through the data, which could then be used
to estimate the median spreading for a given wave
height. But finding the spreading factor for the waves
with a return period of 100 years or more that are used
as design criteria would involve an extrapolation from
the existing data. This extrapolation would eventually
give a spreading factor greater than 1, which is physi-
cally impossible.
We believe that more reasonable estimates of the
spreading factor for very high waves can be made by
examining the characteristics of the distribution of mea-
sured spreading values. The median value of the spread-
ing factor increases with wave height largely because
there are many occurrences of low spreading factors in
low confused seas. The curves giving the 75% and 90%
levels of the distribution are much flatter than the me-
dian, and the three tend to merge at high wave heights.
The probability distribution function of f is thus steeper
for higher wave heights. This is illustrated explicitly in
Fig. 23, which shows the distribution function of f for
different wave height ranges at Auk. As the wave height
increases, the distribution functions become steeper, so
that there is less difference between, say, the 50% and
90% levels. In fact, the curves appear to be approaching
a nearly constant value through the middle percentages
with short tails at high and low probabilities. It thus
seems reasonable to take the 90% probability level of
the spreading factor as the limit to which the spreading
factor will converge for the highest waves at a site. For
statistical stability, the 90% level can be calculated over
all waves greater than some moderately high value, for
example, 5 m.
The statistics of the spreading factor show substantial
differences from site to site. The best site-specific in-
formation will come from a long series of measurements
at that site. For sites near those we have analyzed, the
figures in Table 6 can be used. The table gives the sta-
tistics for significant wave heights greater than 5 m at
each site.
The correlation of spreading factor with latitude is so
strong that we believe it can be used to predict the
spreading factor at other locations. The regression lines
468 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 15

FIG. 23. Probability distribution of spreading factors measured at Auk. Each curve is the sample
distribution for a measurement with significant wave heights between the cell lower limit in the
legend and the next higher cell limit.

in Fig. 15 are given in Eqs. (81)–(83), where l is the
latitude in degrees:
f50 5 0.9948 2 0.00237|l|,
f75 5 1.0144 2 0.00230|l|,
and
f90 5 1.0193 2 0.00208|l|.
These equations should not be used outside the range
of 36 , |l| , 72 in which the measurements used to
derive them were made. It does, however, seem reason-
able that the spreading factor could be very close to 1.0
at low-latitude sites where the wave climate is totally
dominated by swell, such as in the Gulf of Guinea.
In summary, our recommended values of the spread-
ing factor for use in the design of space frame structures
are
(81) R low-latitude monsoons: f 5 0.880,
R tropical cyclones: f 5 0.867, and
(82) R extratropical storms for 36 , |l| , 72: f 5 1.0193
2 0.00208|l|.
(83)
d. The use of hindcast models
Many design criteria are now based on hindcasts of
waves made by numerical models. Hindcasts have the
advantage of providing a very long time series of data
for extreme value analysis at a small fraction of the cost
of an extended measurement program. Using the direc-
tional spectra produced by these hindcasts would offer

TABLE 6. Spreading factors for significant wave heights greater than 5 m at extratropical sites.

Site Latitude (deg) 50% 75% 90%

44014 36.6 0.8959 0.9177 0.9276
46042 36.8 0.9253 0.9444 0.9564
44015 37.5 0.8988 0.9239 0.9428
44001 38.4 0.9226 0.9452 0.9548
Maui 239.6 0.8901 0.9211 0.9390
44025 40.3 0.8757 0.8978 0.9112
46050 44.6 0.8863 0.9157 0.9358
Auk 56.4 0.8803 0.8994 0.9127
WADIC 56.5 0.8781 0.8942 0.9048
North Cormorant 61.2 0.8368 0.8669 0.8891
Haltenbanken 65.8 0.8029 0.8308 0.8564
Nordkappbanken 72.0 0.8437 0.8675 0.8850
APRIL 1998 FORRISTALL AND EWANS
the distinct advantage of giving simultaneous values of
wave height, mean direction, and spreading factor. First,
however, the accuracy of the spreading factors produced
by the models must be verified, which is an exercise
that is beyond the scope of this report. We believe that
such a verification study would be very valuable, but
based on our limited results for fetch-limited waves, we
suspect that the spreading factors produced by third-
generation wave models will be smaller than those ob-
served by instruments. Study of hindcast and observed
spreading factors may then lead to improvements in the
algorithms used in wave models.
Acknowledgments. This study would not have been
possible without the enormous efforts that were made
to collect the wave data we have studied. We do not
know the names of all of the individuals involved, but
we do have a good idea of the amount of work they
did. Thank you.
Ian Leggett provided the data from Auk, North Cor-
morant, and Haltenbanken; Chris Graham provided the
data from Borneo; Phil Jonathan provided the data from
Tern; and Mike Vogel and Charlie Gutierrez provided
the data from Bullwinkle. Steve Buchan sent us the
Tropical Cyclone Bobby data from North Rankin. Ste-
phen Barstow provided the WADIC data and discussed
the instrumentation system with us. Werner Hoekstra
processed much of the data. Ian Young sent us the results
from the Exact-NL model and Gerbrant van Vledder
sent the results from his PHIDIAS version of the WAM
model. We profited from conversations on the interpre-
tation of directional wave data with Leo Holthuijsen.
Peter Tromans showed us why the integrated drag force
on a pile is independent of wave frequency for a given
wave height. Chris Shaw and Tom Tucker made helpful
comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript.
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