The objective of this task is to develop site specific deepwater wave climates all around the Lake Michigan shoreline for each of the five alternate water level scenarios being developed by GLERL. This information is required as input for the hydrodynamic, coastal process and flood inundation modeling activities.

The WIS hindcast deepwater wave database completed by the USACE Waterways Experiment Station covers the period from 1956 to 1987 for the entire lake. An additional period of coverage (1991 to 1993) was completed for the St. Joseph Harbor MCCP project. Additional modeling was conducted to develop a complete database from 1956 to 1997. This data was transferred to a nearshore depth of 8 to 10 meters at all of the Study Sites. Baird & Associates have also completed site specific hindcasts to fill gaps in the spatial coverage of the WIS stations. Baird have also incorporated the influence of ice conditions on the wave predictions as part of the Flood and Erosion Prediction System, and particularly the issue of shore ice protecting the nearshore and backshore zones.

In 1999, Baird & Associates compared the historic monthly wave energy to average monthly lake levels at representative locations around the lake. The analysis found that on the west side of the lake in particular, there was a definite correlation between periods of rising lake level and rising wave energy. WIS data was found to be unreliable on the west side of the lake. Baird created its own hindcast of wave data at the WIS locations in order to develop the deepwater wave data.

For the five prototype counties, the deepwater wave climate data will be added to storm surge/drawdown hourly values. Then, a random generation of monthly mean stillwater values for each scenario will be added to the wave & surge/drawdown data to generate a set of 50 years of data to use in the FEPS model. This task was completed for the five prototype counties in 2000. WES will continue to develop WIS data for the remaining Lake Michigan counties in 2001 and 2002. Click here for additional information.

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