Bathymetric effects on a tropical cyclone wave field at landfall

On 26 August 1998, the NASA Scanning Radar Altimeter (SRA) flew on a NOAA hurricane research aircraft to document the directional wave spectrum as Hurricane Bonnie was making landfall near Wilmington, NC, SRA measurements in deep ocean two days earlier provided a basis of comparison for the bathymetric effects at landfall. The open ocean wave heights indicated that Hurricane Bonnie would have produced waves of 11 m height on the shore had there not been wave damping by the continental shelf. The bathymetry distributed the dissipation process across the shelf so that wavelength and height were reduced gradually. The wave height 5 km from shore was about 4 m.