Abstract: | The potential accuracy of local models is investigated to determine the mean direction of waves from the time history of locally observed significant wave height (or peak frequency) and locally observed wind. This is done by comparing results of such models with observations at a location in the southern North Sea for a period of six weeks. The model results are also compared with results of two synoptic models which require large scale wind information to estimate the local mean wave direction.For significant wave heights larger than 1.5 m the rms-error of the estimated mean wave direction was about 30° for the best performing local model and about 15° for the best performing synoptic model. |