Hindcast of the Hércules winter storm in the North Atlantic

• Main Authors: Sonia Ponce de León, C. Guedes Soares
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11069-015-1806-7

The study describes the Hércules storm hindcast performed with the WAM model during one of the major cyclones that occurred in the North Atlantic in the last several years. A description of the development of a peculiar winter season in which a number of consecutive storms took place severely beating the west of Europe is provided. The performed hindcast was carefully conducted applying WAM model in combination with the reanalysis of NOAA/NCEP (CFSRv2). These results were validated against the network wave buoys of the Port of Authorities (Puertos del Estado) of Spain around the North Atlantic Spanish and Portuguese continental shelf showing a high correlation during the 2 months of the simulation period (1 December 2013 up to 5 February 2014). The study also determined the Benjamin–Feir index and showed that close to the Iberian Peninsula there was a high probability of occurrence of abnormal waves generated in this storm. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Wind waves, WAM, Hércules storm, North Atlantic, Extreme sea states