A Study on the Predictability of Eastern Winter Storm Waves Using Operational Wind Forecasts of KMA

Abstract

The predictability of winter storm waves using KMA's operational wind forecasts has been studied to predict wind waves and swells in the East coast of Korea using SWAN. The nested model were employed along the East coast of Korea to simulate the wave transformation in the coastal area and wave dissipation term of whitecapping is optimized to improve swell prediction accuracy. In this study, KMA's operational meteorological models (RDAPS and LDAPS) are used as input wind fields. In order to evaluate model accuracy, we also simulate wind waves and swells using ECMWF reanalysis and KIOST WRF wind and they are compared with the KMA's operational wave model and the wave measurement data on the offshore and onshore stations. As a result, it has the lowest RMSE and the highest correlation coefficient in the onshore when the input wind fields are KMA's operational meteorological forecasts. In the offshore, all of the simulate results shows good agreements with similar error statistics. It means that it is very feasible to use SWAN model with the modified whitecapping factor and KMA's operational meteorological forecasts for predicting the wind waves and swells in the East coast of Korea.