Rogue waves during Typhoon Trami in the East China Sea

As concluded from physical theory and laboratory experiment, it is widely accepted that nonlinearities of sea state play an important role in the formation of rogue waves; however, the sea states and corresponding nonlinearities of real-world rogue wave events remain poorly understood. Three rogue waves were recorded by a directional buoy located in the East China Sea during Typhoon Trami in August 2013. This study used the WAVEWATCH III model to simulate the sea state conditions pertaining to when and where those rogue waves were observed, based on which a comprehensive and full-scale analysis was performed. From the perspectives of wind and wave fields, wave system tracking, High-Order Spectral method simulation, and some characteristic sea state parameters, we concluded that the rogue waves occurred in sea states dominated by second-order nonlinearities. Moreover, third-order modulational instabilities were suppressed in these events because of the developed or fully developed sea state determined by the typhoon wave system. The method adopted in this study can provide comprehensive and full-scale analysis of rogue waves in the real world. The case studied in this paper is not considered unique, and rules could be found and confirmed in relation to other typhoon sea states through the application of our proposed method.