ORIGINAL PAPER Nearshore propagation of cyclonic waves J. K. Panigrahi • P. A. Umesh • C. P. Padhy • J. Swain Received: 10 November 2009 / Accepted: 2 November 2011 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 Abstract Cyclone-generated surface waves are simulated using state-of-art SWAN (Simulating WAves Nearshore) model coupled with hydrodynamic model inputs. A severe cyclonic storm passed over the Arabian Sea during 4–9th November 1982 is selected from UNISYS track records. The cyclone lasted for nearly 6 days and subsided with a land fall at Gujarat coast, west coast of India. In this study, cyclonic wind fields are generated using a well-established relationship suggested by Jelesnianski and Taylor (1973). The associ- ated water level variations due to storm surge and surge generated currents are simulated using POM (Princeton Ocean Model). The outputs are one-way coupled with the wave model SWAN for simulating wave parameters off Gujarat, north-east basin of Arabian Sea. An extensive literature review is carried out on the progress and methodology adopted for storm wave modelling and analysis. The results presented in this paper reveal the severity of the storm event and would be highly useful for assessing the extreme wave event/climate especially for the south coast of Gujarat. Keywords Wave prediction  Wave simulation  Cyclonic wave modelling  Extreme wave  SWAN 1 Introduction The phenomenal generation of ocean waves from a cyclone depends on a number of atmospheric, meteorological and oceanographic factors and hence becomes very complex J. K. Panigrahi (&) Department of Marine Science, Berhampur University, Berhampur, India e-mail: Jeetendra@scientist.com P. A. Umesh  J. Swain Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory, Kochi 21, India C. P. Padhy Department of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 2, India 123 Nat Hazards DOI 10.1007/s11069-011-0030-3