Oceanum has published a new operational wave forecast for the southwestern and western Australian coast, providing high-resolution wave predictions across one of Australia’s most energetic coastal environments.
The dataset covers the full regional domain at 5 km resolution (112–116.5°E, 34–27°S), with two high-resolution 500 m nested grids over the Abrolhos Islands and Perth, areas of critical interest for marine operations, offshore energy, and coastal management.
Key specifications:
- 7-day forecast horizon, updated every 6 hours (GFS) or 12 hours (ECMWF)
- SWAN 41.31 model with ST6 source term parameterisations
- Ocean currents from Mercator analysis and TPXO9 tidal atlas
- Bathymetry from the Australian Bathymetry and Topography 2024 (250 m)
- 38 integrated wave parameters, including total and partitioned sea states (up to 3 swell partitions via Watershed method)
- 2D frequency-direction spectra at 550 sites across all three domains
Validated against satellite altimeter data (86,000+ observations): RMSD 0.37 m, R² 0.88.
All gridded outputs and spectra are available through Oceanum DatameshFull dataset description:
https://datasets.oceanum.io/oceanum_sw_western_australia_wave_forecast.html
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