*2.1. Study Area*

The Canary archipelago consists of seven major islands and several islets and constitutes a Spanish autonomous community located on the Northwest African continental shelf, in the Eastern Central Atlantic, off the Saharan coast at a minimum distance close to 100 km, measured from Fuerteventura, the easternmost island. Gran Canaria (GC) and Tenerife (T) are the two most populated islands, together constituting more than 80% of the total population (over 1,750,000 inhabitants). The rest of the residents are mostly concentrated in Fuerteventura (F), Lanzarote (L), and La Palma (P), while the minor islands of El Hierro (H) and La Gomera (G) are barely populated. The archipelago is approximately centered at the coordinates (28◦ N, 15◦ E) and extends around 450 km from east to west between 27◦ and 30◦ of northern latitude, as shown in Figure 1. The enlarged image shows the relative position of each island within the archipelago and with respect to the African continent, as well as the complex geometry of the islands' coast. In addition, it shows an enlarged illustration of the southern side of Tenerife. An important aspect, not observed in

the figure, is the altitude of the islands. Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the islands closest to Africa, are significantly flat, but the altitude is over 1500 m in the further west islands, reaching the maximum height (3715 m) at Pico del Teide, Tenerife, the largest (2034 km2) and highest of the islands.

**Figure 1.** Geographical location of the Canary Islands (**left**) and zoom of the archipelago, with the African coast as a reference in the (**right**) lower corner, as well as an expansion of the southern edge of Tenerife island.

Due to its geographical location, in the southern edge of the Azores High, the Canaries are within the fairly regular Trade Winds belt. The trade winds regime exhibits a clear seasonal pattern throughout the year, governed by the relative intensity and location of the Icelandic Low and Azores High pressure systems. During summer, the dominant trade winds blow with moderate or weak intensity from the N-NNE directional sector, with frequencies between 90% and 95%, while, during winter, NE trade winds blow with lower intensity and frequency, over 50% (e.g., [8]).

Naturally, the wave climate in the archipelago is strongly related to the above atmospheric conditions and, consequently, wave conditions are rather mild, Thus, the northern edge of the island is the most exposed to wave action, while there are significant spatial variations around the islands' coastline [9,10]. Furthermore, wave conditions undergo a clear seasonal pattern in the most energetic areas, the northern and western sides of the archipelago, with mild wave conditions from April to October and more severe situations from November to March. Regarding wave storm conditions on the north side of the archipelago, it has been observed that extreme wave events also exhibit a statistically significant seasonal behavior [11]. The tidal regime in the islands is mesotidal, with a semidiurnal tide pattern and a tidal range oscillating approximately between 0.5 m and 3 m, and a mean value close to 1.5 m [12]. Furthermore, meteorological residuals are almost negligible, ranging within ±20 cm, approximately, but with a modal value that is almost null [13].
