Weatherwise is a magazine published by the American Meteorological Society. One issue gives a rating system used to classify nor’easter storms that frequently hit New England and can cause much damage near the ocean. A severe storm has an average peak wave height of μ = 16.4 feet for waves hitting the shore. Suppose that a nor’easter is in progress at the severe storm class rating. Peak wave heights are usually measured from land (using binoculars) off fixed cement piers. Suppose that a reading of 36 waves showed an average wave height of  = 17.3 feet. Previous studies of severe storms indicate that σ = 3.5 feet. Does this information suggest that the storm is (perhaps temporarily) increasing above the severe rating? Use α = 0.01.
Please provide the following information:
(a) What is the level of significance? State the null and alternate hypotheses.
(b) What sampling distribution will you use? Explain the rationale for your choice of sampling distribution. Compute the value of the sample test statistic.
(c) Find (or estimate) the P-value. Sketch the sampling distribution and show the area corresponding to the P-value.
(d) Based on your answers in parts (a)–(c), will you reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis? Are the data statistically significant at level α?
(e) Interpret your conclusion in the context of the application.
For degrees of freedom d.f. not given in the Student’s t table, use the closest d.f. that is smaller. In some situations, this choice of d.f. may increase the P-value by a small amount and therefore produce a slightly more “conservative” answer.