Current and wave measurements off the coast of New Jersey during the second most severe storm of the past 28 years

Abstract

Woods Hole Group, Inc. (WHG), configured, assembled and deployed a Mooring Systems Inc. Trawl Resistant Bottom Mount (TRBM) platform equipped with current, wave, and water quality instrumentation at a site called NJORD, located approximately 17 miles southeast of Ocean City, NJ. On March 6-7, 2013, the area offshore New Jersey experienced severe storm conditions due to an extratropical cyclone passing approximately 100 miles south of the measurement site. NOAA's National Data Buoy Center has been collecting wave data at a nearby location since 1985. According to this record, the storm of March 6-7, 2013, in terms of wave height (Hm0=7.8m), ranks as the second most severe storm in nearly 30 years. The maximum significant wave height (Hm0 = 8.1m) was recorded by the NOAA Buoy on November 13, 2009. This most severe storm event was also associated with an extratropical cyclone that passed south of the site as it translated towards east-northeast. That fact makes the data collected at the NJORD site during typical severe storm conditions valuable. The measurements collected by WHG during the storm are of interest from an acoustic measurement perspective because significant wave height was a large fraction of the water depth, producing actively breaking waves in 28m of water. The performance of the bottom-mounted AWAC in this high energy environment is evaluated.