Puerto Rico Wave Climate Atlas: Extreme Events
Puerto Rico is subject to extreme wave events ranging from Category 5
Hurricanes such as Hurricanes Irma and María to strong winter swells
such as the one generated by Winter Storm Riley in March 2018. Rare but
moderate-sized wave events such as Hurricane Lenny (1999) and Hurricane
Matthew (2016) also play a major role in shaping our coastlines and
causing erosion, accretion and damage to coastal infrastructure. The
figure below shows a heat map where different colors represent which
events caused the largest wave energy (most severe sea state) at each
location within the model domain. Note that while the light blue color,
which represents Hurricanes Irma and María in 2017, cover a majority fo
the domain, there are other events that dominate, most notably Hurricane
Allen (1980) in waters off southwestern PR. Also, note that large winter
swell events in 2008 and 2018 caused higher wave energy throughout most
of the nearshore waters off the northern coast of Puerto Rico than
hurricane events.
The figures below show zoomed-in maps of the wave events with the
largest wave energy for western PR (left), eastern PR (middle) and the
USVI (right).
EXTREME EVENTS: ANIMATIONS
In this section we provide visualizations of wave conditions for the
following extreme events:
- Hurricanes David (1979), Allen (1980), Matthew (2016), and
Hurricanes Irma and María (2017) - Hurricane Lenny (1999) and Hurricane Omar (2008), both “left-handed”
hurricanes that passed south of Puerto Rico - Strong winter swells in October 1991 (The “Perfect” Storm), February
1999, March 2008 (“Holy Swell”), and March 2018 (Winter Storm
Riley), among others
Hurricane Events:
Winter Swell Events:
