221 - CAPE COD BAY, MA   Notice:12/12/2023 Data hold: wave, sst, acm,Mooring and buoy maintenance. Mobile View

Parameter File Description

All wave parameters are taken from the CDIP spectral file. Note that unmeasured parameters are left blank in the file, meaning that all of the columns listed below will not be present in an individual data file.

Column Descriptions

ColumnDescription
1Year (YYYY) UTC
2Month (MM) UTC
3Day (DD) UTC
4Hour (HH) UTC
5Minute (MM) UTC
6Hs (m) - Significant wave height in meters; derived from the zeroth moment of the reported energy spectrum. Described as the "average height of the one third highest waves in the record". The US Army Corps of Engineers, Shore Protection Manual, 3-11, states that a useful estimate of significant wave height in deep water is defined as: Hs~4*sigma, where sigma is the standard deviation of the wave record. Statistically, the maximum wave height in the record is Hmax ~ 9*Hs/5.
7Tp (s) * - Peak period, in seconds; inverse of the frequency with the highest energy density in the reported spectrum.
8Dp (deg) * - Mean direction from which energy is coming at the peak period, in degrees clockwise from true North. (For pressure sensors in deep water, such as at Harvest Platform, we are unable to resolve Dp there when the peak period is less than .14 hz.)
9Depth (m) - Mean sensor depth at the time of the observation in meters; not corrected for tide. For a pressure sensor, water depth is calculated as the sample mean.
10Ta (s) - Average period, in seconds; derived from the zeroth moment divided by the first moment of the reported energy spectrum.
11Pres (mB) - Atmospheric air pressure in millibars.
12Wspd (m/s) - Average wind speed in meters/sec.
13Wdir (deg) - Average wind direction, direction wind is coming from, in degrees clockwise from true North .
14Temp Air (deg) - Air temperature in degrees Celsius.
15Temp Sea (C) - Sea surface temperature in degrees Celsius.
16Cspd (m/s) - Surface current speed, in meters per second.
17Cdir (deg) - Surface current direction, heading to, in degrees.
18P f - Public release or QC flag, equal to 1 for records that pass QC.
* Note that parameter data from directional buoys obtained from CDIP before November 17, 2005 may have Tp and Dp values that differ from those now reported. This is a result of change in our processing; for more details, please refer to the change report.

Sample Data

YEAR MO DY HR MN   Hs   Tp   Dp    Depth   Ta    Pres   Wspd Wdir Temp   Temp  Cspd Cdir P
      UTC           m   sec  deg     m     sec    mB     m/s  deg Air(C) Sfc(C) m/s deg  f
2021 06 29 04 30  0.89 15.38 160           5.67                           26.7 0.13  262 1
2021 06 29 05 00  0.82 15.38 160           5.43                           26.7 0.09  281 1
2021 06 29 05 30  0.87 15.38 162           5.96                           26.7 0.10  274 1
2021 06 29 06 00  0.76 15.38 163           5.57                           26.6 0.09  275 1
2021 06 29 06 30  0.74 16.67 162           6.38                           26.6 0.11  242 1
2021 06 29 07 00  0.74 15.38 163           6.59                           26.6 0.05  225 1
2021 06 29 07 30  0.71 15.38 166           6.40                           26.6 0.02   39 1
2021 06 29 08 00  0.68 15.38 167           5.97                           26.6 0.02   82 1
2021 06 29 08 30  0.73 15.38 171           5.97                           26.6 0.04   70 1
2021 06 29 09 00  0.69 15.38 169           5.78                           26.6 0.07  117 1

FORTRAN format statements used for producing parameter files