Extreme Ocean Storm Statistics with Clustering Analysis for Australian Coasts

Australian coastal data provides a statistical model for extreme storm events, incorporating storm clustering effects. The analysis uses a 30-year timeseries of observations from the eastern and southern coast of Australia, developed by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Project. The methodology involves extracting independent storm events and modeling their multivariate characteristics.

Use Cases

• Modeling the joint distribution of maximum significant wave height (Hsig), wave period, and wave direction using copula functions to assess compound storm hazards.
• Estimating storm event occurrence rates and duration using non-homogenous Poisson process models that account for sub-annual variations.
• Analyzing anti-clustering behavior in storm timings to refine coastal erosion predictions for events occurring in close succession.
• Fitting a Generalised Pareto distribution to Hsig and Pearson type 3 distributions to duration and tidal residual for extreme value analysis.

Strengths

• Analysis is based on a 30-year timeseries of ocean observations, providing a long-term climate perspective.
• Multivariate modeling incorporates six key storm statistics: Hsig, wave period, wave direction, duration, peak storm surge, and time of occurrence.
• Methodology rigorously defines independent storm events using a peaks-over-threshold approach at the 95% exceedance quantile (2.93 m).

Limitations

• The dataset's specific row count and sample size are not provided, limiting reproducibility assessments.
• Geographic focus is primarily on a study site on the central coast of New South Wales, Australia, reducing generalizability to other regions.
• Primary data formats are PDF and HTML, which may require extraction to access structured, machine-readable data.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, as part of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Project.

Collection Method

Storm events were extracted from observational timeseries using a peaks-over-threshold method and manually checked against sea-level pressure data.

Time Range

Covers a 30-year period, though specific start and end years are not stated.

Freshness

The record was last updated on 2026-04-04, indicating active maintenance.

Geography

Eastern and southern coast of Australia, with a detailed study site on the central coast of New South Wales.