How to Describe Water Waves

Educate yourself a little about the science concerning the origins and journeys of water waves. This knowledge will help you understand and appreciate why and how different kinds of waves arise. Although water is very heavy, just a small amount of wind far out at sea is sufficient to generate the waves that ceaselessly roll into every coast on Earth. Waves combine with others of like frequency, that is, the time between the crest of one wave and the next. Some eventually reach continental and island shores, with their final shapes, sizes, force and other characteristics depending on such factors as weather conditions and coastlines' local geological features, like beach slope.

Learn the various names that scientists use to classify water waves. For example, tsunamis are enormous, unusually destructive waves arising from sea floor earthquakes. However, the other kinds of ocean waves are wind-generated, including rogue waves, remarkably high, dangerous waves that arise out at sea from a combination of high winds and strong currents. When a light breeze ruffles a length of the ocean called a fetch, the small ripples that accumulate into larger waves are called catspaws. As waves enter shallow water and near the land, they are named breakers. Surging breakers break one at a time against steeply sloping rock. Plunging breakers take place in a single row at a time against steeply sloping sand. Gently sloping beaches give rise to multiple rows of spilling breakers, the most common kind.

Read up on surfer slang. Not only is it fun and colorful, surfers study and classify waves as carefully as any scientist. Their performance and their lives depend on their powers of observation. Not surprisingly, surfers have created many words to describe waves, especially breakers. For example, "tube" is surfer lingo for a breaker that creates a tunnel as it curves over. It is the source of the widespread 1980s expression "tubular," meaning "excellent."