ARCATA -- Humboldt State University oceanography professor Greg Crawford will be spending the next two years working on a computer model that will give area residents sufficient warning of dangerous waves at the entrance to Humboldt Bay.

Crawford and his colleagues at the Eureka Forecast Office of the National Weather Service received a $77,500 grant for the project to be funded by the Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education and Training of the National Weather Service, which is an adjunct of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, D.C.

"Humboldt Bay is a large bay, with a small entrance," Dr. Crawford noted. "The tides push and pull a lot of water through that tiny entrance, so the currents there can get quite fast. We also get big storm waves, mostly in winter and spring. When the tide is rushing out of the bay and big waves are coming in, the waves get bigger and steeper and can break violently. It's made even worse by the sediments that pile up at the entrance in the winter and spring, making the entrance shallower."

Crawford and his colleagues will attempt to predict the onset of risky conditions. "Troy Nicolini at the Weather Service and I have had this idea for a few years," Crawford added. "It has taken a while to get things rolling, but suddenly we're making progress in leaps and bounds."

The Army Corps of Engineers has lent the project a buoy that measures waves. The measurements will be used to help validate the computer model predictions. The buoy was deployed in mid-January and currently sits about three miles west of the bay's entrance. It is scheduled to be in place until December.

Researchers from University of California-San Diego's Coastal Data Information Program are assisting with technical support for the buoy and making the data available on the Internet. Recent and historical wave data are available from the CDIP Web page at www.cdip.ucsd.edu Click on the "Data" option, or go to the local Web page at www.wrh.noaa.gov/Eureka

"It's an exciting time right now," Nicolini said. "We're right in the middle of this project and hope to start producing some forecasts of near-shore wave conditions in the next couple of months. Including the tidal effects will take a little more work, but we hope to have some results by next year."

Crawford said their research will also have recreational benefits. "When all is said and done, we'll be producing good swell forecasts for the local surfers as well."