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Measuring the directional distribution of ocean waves is a difficult task inocean wave research. For many decades, wind-generated waves are assumed topropagate primarily in the wind direction. The concept is applied eitherimplicitly or explicitly in the formulation of the wind input function and thedesign of the wave directional distribution function. Photographs of the oceansurface wave fields under steady wind forcing, however, display very differentdirectional properties. In the near shore region, the surface undulations aredominantly crosswind. As the fetch increases, the geometry of surface waves iscrosshatched, indicating two dominant wave trains crossing each other. Thispattern of wave propagation in off-wind directions is repeatedly photographedin different locations under different offshore (toward) wind events. Thewavelengths of these airborne photographs are in the deca-meter length scale.Shorter waves with wavelengths ranging from a few centimeters to a fewdecimeters also show crosshatched patterns, based on pictures taken from landand ship. In the crosshatched cases, most pictures show that the wind vectorbisecting the diamond shape of the surface wave geometry. The observed wavegeometries and their fetch evolution expose a major flaw in our fundamentalassumption (implicitly or explicitly) that "wind-generated waves propagateprimarily in the wind direction." The assumption has been taken for granted formany decades in applications including basic research of wave dynamics and thedesign of directional wave spectral model for calculations of the ocean surfaceroughness and the force, energy, and momentum of a wave field.

Do wind-generated waves under steady forcing propagate primarily in the downwind direction?