NUMERICAL MODELING OF WAVES AT PONCE DE LEON INLET, FLORIDA

Coastal inlets pose challenges of complex bathymetry, wave-current interaction, and influences of natural and artificial barriers for prediction of wave transformation with numerical wave models. The steady-state spectral WAVE model is described and evaluated with directional wave data measured during two storms (5.4 m and 2.4 m peak wave height) at Ponce de Leon Inlet, on the Atlantic coast of Florida. Model simulations of the two storms agreed well with measurements (within measurement uncertainty) except when incident waves were strongly nonlinear. Wave-current interaction was found to be a small influence compared to refraction by changing water depth.