The Grand Banks and the Scotian Shelf regions of the Canadian Atlantic
often experience strong winds and high waves associated with the pass
age of intense storms during the winter months of December to March. T
hese storm waves are identified as a major hazard to shipping, offshor
e exploration and other marine activities in eastern Canada. In this s
tudy, an operational spectral ocean wave model has been used to simula
te sea-states associated with selected storm events in the Canadian At
lantic. The wave model operates on a grid (with grid spacing of about
111 km) which covers a major portion of the north Atlantic. A nested f
ine grid (with grid spacing of about 37 km) has been designed which co
vers the shelf regions of the Canadian Atlantic. The model employs dee
p-water physics over the coarse grid while over the fine grid shallow-
water processes as represented by wave refraction, wave shoaling, bott
om friction and wave number scaling are included. The wave model also
includes, as an optional package, the third-generation source terms as
represented by the nonlinear wave-wave interaction terms. For two sel
ected storm events, the model generated sea-states are evaluated again
st available buoy data as well as against hand analyzed operational wa
ve height charts over the northwest Atlantic. The evaluation shows tha
t the various versions of the model can simulate the observed sea-stat
es, reasonably well. The utility of the wave model in providing numeri
cal guidance for offshore activities is briefly discussed.