The Most Extreme 'Rogue Wave' on Record Was Just Confirmed in The North Pacific

[Judi Lynn]

Carly Cassella - Yesterday 10:33 PM

In November of 2020, a freak wave came out of the blue, lifting a lonesome buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters high (58 feet).

The four-story wall of water has now been confirmed as the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded.

Such an exceptional event is thought to occur only once every 1,300 years. And unless the buoy had been taken for a ride, we might never have known it even happened.

For centuries, rogue waves were considered nothing but nautical folklore. It wasn't until 1995 that myth became fact. On the first day of the new year, a nearly 26-meter-high wave (85 feet) suddenly struck an oil-drilling platform roughly 160 kilometers (100 miles) off the coast of Norway.

At the time, the so-called Draupner wave defied all previous models scientists had put together.

More:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-most-extreme-rogue-wave-on-record-was-just-confirmed-in-the-north-pacific/ar-AATOAQR?li=BBnb7Kz

[intrepidity]

1. Only happens once per 1300 years

But happened in 1995 and 2020?

[2naSalit]

2. That just can't be true...

A few years ago I saw a documentary about rogue waves, or some part of a show that went in-depth about them, seems there have been several in recent history.

[Judi Lynn]

9. The 2020 wave was the largest on record in the North Pacific, the 1995 wave, off Norway. Atlantic.

[Ligyron]

3. Wait, isn't an 85 feet one larger than a 58 ft wave?

[Duppers]

7. MSN needs to change their headline, right?

I wondered about that too.

[PJMcK]

4. Something's not right in this article

Sailors have known of rogue waves for a long time. They happen a lot more frequently than every thousand years.

In general, waves are caused by the friction of the wind on the surface of a body of water. The longer and stronger the wind blows in one direction, the larger the waves can become. Because of the hydro-physics involved, the depth of the water is directly related to the size of the wave.

But waves are not uniform in their period (frequency) or their amplitude (height). If waves are traveling at different speeds and heights, a random confluence of two or more waves can result in their combining forces thus creating the rogue wave. Interestingly, those waves will still maintain their "individuality" and the rogue wave will usually separate back into its constituent waves.

Having sailed in the North Atlantic Ocean and seen its forces, I can believe that these huge waves occur more than once every millennia. For example, the infamous 1991 Halloween Gale/Storm, also know as The Perfect Storm, saw giant waves and the proposition is that a monstrous rogue wave caused the capsize of the Andrea Gail. When added to the examples in the linked article, these behemoths occur more often.

[captain queeg]

5. The oceans are big places, still largely unmonitored

I could certainly think the phenomena is more common than realized.

[Javaman]

6. My step son's best friend, along with his infant son, was swept away by one a few years ago

in Oregon, they call them "sneaker waves".

they found his friends body days later but the infant son was never found. He wife, needless to day, was completely devastated.

[Judi Lynn]

8. 5 million shipwrecked Legos still washing up 25 years after falling overboard

By Mindy Weisberger published 4 days ago

The ship Tokio Express spilled its Lego cargo after colliding with a rogue wave.



(Image credit: A.J.B. Lane)

A once-in-a-century wave that pummeled a cargo ship in 1997 caused the worst toy-related environmental disaster of all time. As the vessel Tokio Express pitched and rolled near the United Kingdom's southwestern coast, 62 shipping containers tumbled off the ship — and one of them dumped nearly 5 million plastic Lego pieces into the ocean.

Soon after the event, which some referred to as the Great Lego Spill, beachgoers in Cornwall, U.K., began finding brightly-colored plastic Legos. Even now, 25 years after the Feb. 13 disaster, numerous Legos from the spill still appear on beaches in Cornwall.

Coincidentally, many of those sea-tossed Lego pieces were nautically-themed. There were tens of thousands of octopuses, life jackets, scuba tanks, diving fins and pirate cutlasses, along with terrestrial shapes such as flowers, "witches' brooms" and dragons, said British beachcomber and writer Tracey Williams, author of "Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea" (Unicorn Publishing Group, 2022).

Williams began collecting beach Legos in 1997 in South Devon, U.K., soon after the spill; more than a decade later, she launched the Lego Lost at Sea Facebook group, where people shared photos of the Legos that they found on British beaches, Williams told Live Science.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/great-lego-spill-25th-anniversary