The Douglas Sea Scale is a scale which measures the height of the waves and also measures the swell of the sea. The scale is very simple to follow. The Douglas Sea Scale is expressed in one of 10 degrees.

The Scale

The Douglas Sea Scale was created by an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 man called H.P. Douglas in 1917 while he was the head of the British Meteorological Navy Service. Its purpose is to estimate the roughness of the sea for navigation. The Scale has two codes, one code is for estimating the state of the sea, the other code is for describing the swell

Swell (ocean)

A swell, in the context of an ocean, sea or lake, is a series surface gravity waves that is not generated by the local wind. Swell waves often have a long wavelength but this varies with the size of the water body, e.g. rarely more than 150 m in the Mediterranean, and from event to event, with...

 of the sea.

Wind Sea

Degree	Height (m)	Description
0	no wave	Calm (Glassy)
1	0 - 0.10	Calm (Rippled)
2	0.10 - 0.50	Smooth
3	0.50 - 1.25	Slight
4	1.25 - 2.50	Moderate
5	2.50 - 4.00	Rough
6	4.00 - 6.00	Very Rough
7	6.00 - 9.00	High
8	9.00 - 14.00	Very High
9	14.00+	Phenomenal

Swell

Degrees	Description
0	No Swell
1	Very Low (short and low wave)
2	Low (long and low wave)
3	Light (short and moderate wave)
4	Moderate (average and moderate wave)
5	Moderate rough (long and moderate wave)
6	Rough (short and heavy wave)
7	High (average and heavy wave)
8	Very high (long and heavy wave)
9	Confused (wave length and height indefinable)

Classification

• Short wave 100 m -
• Average wave 100 - 200 m
• Long wave 201 m +

• Low wave 2 m -
• Moderate wave 2 - 4 m
• High wave 4.01 m +

See also

• Beaufort Scale
  Beaufort scale
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• Fujita Scale
  Fujita scale
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• TORRO Scale
  TORRO scale
  The TORRO tornado intensity scale is a scale measuring tornado intensity between T0 and T11. It was developed by Terence Meaden of the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation , a meteorological organisation in the United Kingdom, as an extension of the Beaufort scale.- History and derivation from...
  
  
• Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale
  Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale
  The Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale , or the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale , classifies hurricanes — Western Hemisphere tropical cyclones that exceed the intensities of tropical depressions and tropical storms — into five categories distinguished by the intensities of their sustained winds...
  
  
• Sea state
  Sea state
  In oceanography, a sea state is the general condition of the free surface on a large body of water—with respect to wind waves and swell—at a certain location and moment. A sea state is characterized by statistics, including the wave height, period, and power spectrum. The sea state varies with...
  
  
• Significant wave height
  Significant wave height
  In physical oceanography, the significant wave height is defined traditionally as the mean wave height of the highest third of the waves , but now usually defined as four times the standard deviation of the surface elevation...