Abstract
This wave climate report presents wave information for Tau Island in American Samoa. This report contains information about wind−generated surface gravity waves, often called wind waves and swell. The wave climate is defined here as the statistics of waves conditions over a 30 year period. The report details the average wave condition (page 2 and 3), the variability of wave conditions (page 4 and 5), severe and extreme waves (page 6 to 9) and characterises the wave energy resource(Page 10). Similar wave climate reports are available for more than 80 locations around the Pacific, near important ports, large settlements, tide gauge locations and areas where the wave climate is of particular interest. Other locations in American Samoa are shown in Figure 1 (Previous page). Because little wave data exists for the Pacific, the information presented here was derived from a computer model: a regional wave hindcast. The wave hindcast evaluated the wave conditions in the region between 1979 and 2013. It was produced by the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research and focussed on the central and south Pacific with a resolution of 10 to 4 arcminutes (~20 to 8km) and therefore is accurate for offshore wave conditions. The model was constrained by the best available data and thoroughly verified against waves measurements. In the Pacific region, the wave hindcast produced resonably good results with an average skill of 0.85 (skills between 0.8 and 0.9 are considered good, above 0.9 is considered excellent, see Table I.1). For more information about the regional wave hindcast, readers should refer to Durrant et al. (2014). This report was generated by a computer program created at SPC−Applied Geoscience and Technology Division which analysed the output from the wave hindcast and summarised the findings. Therefore, despite our best effort, this report may contain errors and ommissions and should be used with caution