Before affecting Haiti and the US East Coast, powerful, slow-moving Hurricane Matthew churned up waves in the Caribbean Sea, causing a small to medium-sized wave event from a very rare west-southwest direction. These waves affected south and west-facing coastlines in the US Caribbean, causing severe beach erosion at many locations, especially in Rincón, Puerto Rico. As Matthew moved up the eastern seaboard, a long period northwest swell was generated which helped the beach recover very quickly. Daily beach profiles at Villa Cofresí obtained by graduate student Gabriela Salgado allowed for a detailed characterization of the temporal variability of the beach face morphology in response to this wave event. Data from the CARICOOS Rincón wave buoy, which captured in detail this very rare wave event, is now being used to understand how Rincón beaches behaved as a function of wave height, period and direction in the hopes of shedding some light into potential coastal protection strategies for Rincón beaches.

 

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This project is sponsored by the Puerto Rico Sea Grant College Program and CARICOOS. Its principal investigator is Dr. Miguel Canals.