| Popis: |
Current meter data obtained from sites on the Alabama, west Florida, and Texas-Louisiana shelves during 1979 coincided with the passage of five tropical cyclones; hurricane Bob, tropical storm Claudette, tropical storm Elena, hurricane Frederic and hurricane Henri, and a sixth storm (hurricane David) which skirted the west Florida coast, although the eye remained east of the Florida penninsula. The observations suggest that along the Alabama shelf (25 m water depth), where the isobaths were essentially perpendicular to the path of the storms, hurricanes Bob and Frederic and tropical storm Claudette caused coastal set-up/set-down, resulting in a complex response. The observations from the west Florida shelf (31 m water depth), where storm paths generally paralleled the isobaths, suggest that the flows associated with hurricanes Frederic, David and possibly tropical storm Claudette were a combination of the storms setting water in motion as they moved through the Gulf of Mexico and local wind forcing. These observations are supported, in part, by the results of an empirical model developed by Holland (1980, Monthly Weather Review , 108 , 1212–1218) to estimate the winds associated with tropical cyclones. At the Texas mooring (100 m water depth), one storm, Claudette, passed nearly over the mooring, forcing the flow to a depth of 50 m below the surface. With the exception of hurricane Frederic at the Alabama shelf mooring, and tropical storm Claudette at the Texas mooring, a response to some of the tropical cyclones occurred even when the center of the storms passed over 200 km from the moorings. |
