Wind and Wave Hindcast and Observations During the Black Sea Storms in November 2023

The Black Sea coasts from the northwest of Turkey through Crimea to Georgia were strongly affected by severe storms in Autumn, 2023. The aim of the work is to compare the performance of different wave model approaches and wind datasets in extreme weather conditions in the Black Sea. The study covers the continuous period from the 1st to the 30th of November including two strong storms with wave heights up to 9–10 m. Wave simulations are performed using WAM and the 2D parametric model for surface wave development suggested in Kudryavtsev et al. (2021a). The wave models are forced by hourly wind fields from four datasets: ECMWF Reanalysis (ERA5), ECMWF Level-4 bias-corrected operational model, NCEP (CFSv2), and the regional WRF-ARW model with 6-hour NCEP/NCAR atmospheric forecast as input. The high-resolution Level-4 wave analysis for the Black Sea produced by CMEMS (also using WAM Cycle 6) is also considered. Simulation results are validated against along-track altimeter measurements of significant wave height, CFOSAT SWIM information on dominant wavelength and wave direction, and in-situ data from an oceanographic platform near Crimea. All models demonstrate their overall good performance, though third-generation wave spectral models give an expectedly higher correlation between simulations and observed data, while the parametric model is less accurate. Some recommendations to combine wind and wave models for the most accurate predictions are further given. As known, the wind speed fields produced by ECMWF are underestimated at winds higher than 15–20 m/s. While the wind correction is crucial when using the parametric model, WAM better reproduces the observed extreme waves without it. As also obtained, WAM simulations forced by NCEP and WRF winds lead to an overestimation of the largest storm waves. Increased resolution of the wind fields does not lead to significant improvement in the quality of wave predictions, which can be explained by the wind accumulation effect during wave development.