Lingo - wave terminology

wave terminology

• ground swells - waves formed over vast distances, well formed and powerful, mackers
• wind swells - waves formed close to the shore by local wind conditions, unorganised, tendency to be slop
• reef breaks - wave is formed over an underwater reef or rock, consistent
• beach breaks - wave is formed over sand and sand bars, can shift seasonally and from storm to storm
• point breaks - wave forms in reaction to the land form, consistent
• river mouth breaks - wave forms on the sediments deposited at the river mouth, similar to beach breaks but sometimes more susceptible to change~ ~ ~
• backwash - flood of water returning off the foreshore against incoming waves
• cnoid waves - as waves come in to shallow water their shape changes to something called a 'cnoid' which has a short, steep crest and a long shallow trough - those are what we see as lines of corduroy.
• channel - a channel of deeper water where excess water, piled up by waves, flows out to sea
• clean - faces are unrippled - usually offshore or no wind
• face - clean, smooth wall on the shore side of a wave
• fetch - determines the size of a wave. wind speed X time X distance
• frequency downshifting - the increase of wave period within a fetch .... a decrease in frequency is an increase in period.
• impact zone - the point where the waves break for the first time
• inside - where waves continue to break, reform, and break again if it's big enough
• lip - curling lip at the top of a wave
• line-up - just beyond the impact zone where you wait to catch waves
• outside - offshore, beyond where the waves break
• pitch - the act of the lip throwing out in front of the wave
• period - time between waves. wind swell less than about 10 seconds /approx/ 12 seconds and longer is ground swell (the energy / power of a wave is proportional not only to its height but its period.)
• section - any appreciable length of wave that has common characteristics and timing
  ie: breaking in sections - sectiony
• shore-dump / soup / slop - unorganised sloppy foam, no good for nothing
• sine waves - in deep water swells are very well-approximated by pure sine waves.
• steep - refers to angle or pitch of wave face