WaveWatch III (WW3) Hawaii Regional Wave Model

Through a collaborative effort with NOAA/NCEP and NWS Honolulu, the University of Hawaii has implemented a global-scale WaveWatch III (WW3) model (ww3_global), which in turn provides boundary conditions for this Hawaii regional WW3: a 7-day model with a 5-day hourly forecast at approximately 5-km or 0.05-deg resolution. The primary purpose of this regional model is to capture island effects such as island shadowing, refraction, and accurate modeling of local wind waves.

Hawaii WW3 is forced with winds from the University of Hawaii Meteorology Department's operational mesoscale model, which has a more suitable spatial resolution than the global scale wind field. The Hawaii regional WW3 also provides boundary conditions for nearshore island-scale models via Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN). While considerable effort has been made to implement all model components in a thorough, correct, and accurate manner, numerous sources of error are possible.