Why do some beaches have bigger waves?

Question

Some beaches the waves are bigger like in Bay of Bengal (some parts) . In some areas of Arabian sea the waves in the beaches are very small.

Answer 1

It depends on how a particular beach faces the swells driven by the prevailing winds and how protected that particular beach is.

If a beach is parallel to the wind-driven swells, or is protected by a point or cove, you won't see very big waves.

You'll get huge waves if you're on a beach perpendicular to the wind-driven swells, or if it is relatively unprotected.

Also, the bathymetry just offshore will affect the size of the waves. If it gets very shallow a long distance from the beach, then the waves will break far from the beach and the beach itself won't see very big waves.

Answer 2

The size of waves has a little to do with wind, but not nearly as much as the ground underneath the water near the beach. If the ocean floor slowly rises to the beach, the waves will never be very big. If there are sharp rises and/or reefs, etc. the waves will be much bigger. As the wind pushes the water into small waves on the surface, they come towards shore. Waves are much more than just what you see on the surface. There is great force underneath the wave. (That's why you can lose your balance even with a small wave that comes up to your knees.) This great force of water moving underneath the surface is forced upward by the rising ground, producing large waves. You can see this in a pool. When you push water toward the edge of the pool, it has little waves, but when it hits the side of the pool, it makes a slap, and water goes spraying everywhere. It's a similar principle. Hawaii has huge waves on one side of the islands, but small waves on the other. This is because there are sharp rises on one side and not the other. Hurricanes can produce large waves, but land normally has a greater impact on waves. One more example. When a tsunami is at sea, it moves very fast (sometimes 500 mph), but it can pass right underneath boats without them noticing it. But when it nears land, the rising land forces the water upward, slowing it down, but making a huge wave (sometimes 100 ft tall).

Answer 3

It depends on the ocean currents and seismic activity. It's the ocean that makes the waves, not the beach. However, if there is a lack of coral reefs or sandbars, waves will be bigger because there is nothing to break up the water's momentum.

Answer 4

he great majority of waves one sees on an ocean beach result from distant winds. Three factors influence the formation of "wind waves":

* Wind speed
* Length of time the wind has blown over a given area
* Distance of open water that the wind has blown over; called fetch

All of these factors work together to determine the size and shape of ocean waves. The greater each of the variables, the larger the waves. Waves are measured by:

* Height (from trough to crest)
* Length (from crest to crest)
* Steepness, or slope (either the angle between crest and trough, or the "steepness ratio," of the wave's height to its length)
* Period (length of time between crests)

There are theoretical limitations, however, for each variable. The smaller the fetch, the smaller the largest wave can be for a given wind speed, regardless of how long the wind blows.

Both in theory and in reality, waves are never created in one uniform height. They fall into a systemic pattern of varying size. For weather reporting and for scientific analysis of wave behavior, their size over a period of time is usually expressed as "significant wave height." This figure represents the average of the highest one-third of the waves in a given time period (usually twelve hours) or in a specific wave or storm system. Given the variability of wave size, it might be expected that individual waves are likely to be twice the reported significant wave height for a particular day or storm.