National Network of Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes

Introduction

The storm catalogue is an archive of the spatial footprint and associated storm track of extreme wave events (defined by the 1 year return period Hs) captured by the wave buoy network operated by the National Network of Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes of England since 2003. It is the result of an effort by the Channel Coastal Observatory to synthesise the wave data collected by the network, and is updated on an annual basis. Although the rationale behind the location of each buoy is to provide site-specific wave information, the number of buoys currently deployed means that they can produce a consistent, spatially-representative, shallow water wave climate of the English coast.

The catalogue is organised so that the user can browse extreme wave events either by storm season or by the region that was impacted by a storm. There are two maps for each storm; one showing the spatial footprint of the event and the other the associated storm track.

The maximum Hs measured at each wave buoy site during an extreme wave event are given in the following spreadsheet. This document will be updated annually.

The method of extremes analysis that underpins the storm catalogue is described in TN03, available from http://www.channelcoast.org/reports/
Dhoop, T. & Thompson, C. 2018. Extreme Value Analysis for CCO Coastal Wave Data. Channel Coastal Observatory TN03.

Full details of the background can be found in the open access peer-reviewed paper:
Dhoop, T. & Mason, T. 2018. Spatial Characteristics and Duration of Extreme Wave Events around the English Coastline. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. 6(1), 14; DOI: 10.3390/jmse6010014 http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/6/1/14

The images in this catalogue are free to use under the Open Government Licence using the following copyright and acknowledgement:
Copyright: New Forest District Council
Acknowledgement: Image courtesy of the National Network of Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes

Wave Data

The analysis that underpins the storm catalogue uses all measured data from 37 directional waverider buoys from initial deployment until 30 June 2017, together with 3 industry owned buoys. Data from the wave buoys at Wave Hub, Rhyl Flats, and Gwynt Y Môr were kindly provided by Wave Hub Ltd. and RWE Innogy Ltd. Record length exceeds 10 years at the majority of sites, and up to ~ 16 years along the eastern English Channel.

Regional Partitioning

The English coastline has been partitioned into sections of coast which have a distinct and common behavioural response to extreme wave events.