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Hindcast of the Hércules winter storm in the North Atlantic

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Abstract

The study describes the Hércules storm hindcast performed with the WAM model during one of the major cyclones that occurred in the North Atlantic in the last several years. A description of the development of a peculiar winter season in which a number of consecutive storms took place severely beating the west of Europe is provided. The performed hindcast was carefully conducted applying WAM model in combination with the reanalysis of NOAA/NCEP (CFSRv2). These results were validated against the network wave buoys of the Port of Authorities (Puertos del Estado) of Spain around the North Atlantic Spanish and Portuguese continental shelf showing a high correlation during the 2 months of the simulation period (1 December 2013 up to 5 February 2014). The study also determined the Benjamin–Feir index and showed that close to the Iberian Peninsula there was a high probability of occurrence of abnormal waves generated in this storm.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to Pilar Gil (Puertos del Estado, España) who supplied the wave records around the Iberian Peninsula. This work has been performed within the Project CLIBECO—Present and future marine climate in the Iberian coast, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT-Fundação Portuguesa para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) under contract no.: EXPL/AAG-MAA/1001/2013. The first author has been financed by the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal (FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) through Grant SFRH/BPD/84358/2012.

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  1. Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering (CENTEC), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal

    Sonia Ponce de León & C. Guedes Soares

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  1. Sonia Ponce de León
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  2. C. Guedes Soares
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Correspondence to C. Guedes Soares.

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Ponce de León, S., Guedes Soares, C. Hindcast of the Hércules winter storm in the North Atlantic. Nat Hazards 78, 1883–1897 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-015-1806-7

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