Hotspot dune erosion on an intermediate beach

A large, low pressure Nor’easter storm and Hurricane Joaquin contributed to multiple weeks of sustained, elevated wave and water level conditions along the southeastern Atlantic coast of the United States in Fall 2015. Sea level anomalies in excess of 1 m and offshore wave heights of up to 4 m were recorded during these storms, as observed at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Field Research Facility in Duck, NC, USA. In response to these energetic oceanographic conditions, there were highly variable morphologic changes to the dune over short spatial scales (