Design waves and wind in the Australian tropics

A rationale for determination of design waves appropriate to various structure lifetimes in the Australian tropics is developed, The method ensures consistency in design wind gusts and design waves, both being geophysical events arising almost certainly from tropical cyclones. Incorporated also in the paper are a discussion of the relationships be-tween mean winds and gusts for cyclone wind fields over land and sea, an evaluation of the validity of using an average radius of cyclone maximum windband in the method, and a general treatment for determining the effects of geographical fetch limitations on design wave heights.