Oceanographic Data From Hurricane Camille
Authors: Patterson M.M. 
Published: December 2007

On Aug. 17, 1969, Hurricane Camille passed between two ocean data-gathering stations. Wind and wave information recorded at three deep-water locations are presented in several formats, including significant wave height and power spectral density. Two hindcasts of the wave heights are made and compared with the measured data.

History of Hurricane Camille

Sometime during the morning of Aug. 15, 1969, tropical storm Camille became a hurricane. The storm had developed in the westernmost part of the Caribbean near the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. Camille entered the Gulf during the afternoon of Aug. 15 and by noon of Aug. 16 had taken a direction that would cause her to pass directly between two instrumented platforms of the pass directly between two instrumented platforms of the Oceanographic Data Gathering Program. Fig. 1 shows a track of this intense storm in relation to the data-gathering stations. The eye of the storm passed 16 miles west of South Pass Block 62A, which is Station 1, 47 miles east of Station 2, and 90 miles east of Station 3. Waves in excess of 20 ft and winds in excess of 45 knots were recorded at all three locations.

Camille was a small but intense hurricane. In fact, its barometric pressure (26.63 in. of mercury in the eye) was the second lowest ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. The hurricane also had a high forward velocity. During its life, the hurricane had two eyes, an inner eye with a radius of about 2 or 3 miles and an outer eye with a radius of about 11 or 12 miles.

Valuable oceanographic data were gathered at the stations by the Oceanographic Data Gathering Program during Hurricane Camille. At Station 1, hurricane winds and waves were recorded until 1620 hours on Aug. 17. At that time, both wave staffs failed and no further information was recorded. Sometime after that, the wind-speed device was destroyed by hurricane winds. However, significant wind information was recorded before the instruments were lost. The electronic equipment in a recorder house on the platform survived the storm without damage. At Station 2, both wave staffs were pulled from their underwater connections at about 1630 hours on Aug. 17. All other instrument systems recorded satisfactorily. According to the barometer, the lowest pressure measured at Station 2 occurred about the time the wave staffs failed. Station 3 operated successfully throughout the storm and recorded hurricane wind gusts early in the afternoon of Aug. 17.

This is the first deep-water wave information ever to be gathered from a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. These are also the first hurricane data to be gathered at three separate locations.

Significant Wave Heights for Hurricane Camille

The analog tapes containing wave height, wind speed, and direction for all three stations were removed from the platforms on Aug. 19 and returned to Houston for immediate analysis. To analyze environmental conditions recorded on these tapes, it was necessary that the information be put in digital form so that it could be analyzed by computer. The data were digitized with the help of Geotech, a division of Teledyne, Inc. The sampling rate was 1 sample/sec for a 30-minute waveheight record. For Hurricane Camille, a 30-minute segment was digitized hourly during the peak of the storm for each location.

The first parameters determined from the data were the significant wave height and the significant period.

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