What creates waves?
Wind makes waves. Friction caused when wind blows over a flat sea will create waves. The more energy the wind imparts the bigger and more powerful the waves. How can I tell how much swell will be generated? The key words in judging the amount of wave energy a wind system is likely to produce are strength, fetch and duration. • Strength – Pretty obvious. The faster the wind is blowing the more energy it will impart. On the wind forecast model this is colour coded. On an isobar chart closely packed isobars indicate stronger winds. • Fetch – This is simply the area of ocean the wind is blowing over. A small, localised storm may only be tens of miles across, whereas a large storm system may cover hundreds of miles of open ocean. The greater the area of wind blowing in the same direction the more energy imparted and the bigger waves created. The situation is a little more complicated when virtual fetch is factored in. Imagine a large storm covering a thousand miles of ocean. Now imagine a s
