The discussion about "towards or from" usually comes down to background - meteorologists use "from" and oceanographers use "towards". As long as they don't meet, things are clear and life is good. However, they do meet when we talk about wave direction, and this is usually where things get really messy.

For currents, oceanographers rule and all Nortek software gives the direction "towards". Waves are always reported as "from".

Wave directions are reported as "Magnetic" North, with of course North being 0 degrees, East 90 degrees etc. Corrections for local deviations (i.e. magnetic declination) can be accounted for during wave processing by the user specifying the directional offset.