AbstractThe South China Sea (SCS) is a highly semi-enclosed marginal sea located in the East Asian monsoon region. This paper proposes interesting aspects of the unique feature of the SCS waves in response to tropical cyclone's passage when large-scale winter monsoon winds prevail. We use the wave model WaveWatch III to study the wave characteristics of typhoon Durian (2006) passing over the middle of SCS in early December 2006, and state the new understanding acquired in the aspects of the tropical cyclone generated waves in the SCS during winter monsoon surge. In light of this, the role of the large-scale NE monsoon winds on winter typhoon wave field characteristics in the SCS are highlighted by conducting sensitivity experiments with and without the NE monsoon winds. The NE monsoon winds weakly affect the SWH field near the typhoon track and strongly away from the track, especially in the deep water area of the northern SCS where the NE monsoon winds produce high waves. Comparisons between the two experiments show the effect of the NE monsoon winds on the directional wave spectra in the SCS, suggesting that the monsoon-generated swells do not decay and remain throughout the typhoon period.