These waves are especially sneaky because they can often occur when the weather is perfectly nice.
“We don’t see a lot of weather during these events,” says Larry Smith, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Monterey. “And that kind of feeds into the ‘sneaker wave’ thing.”
But the presence of sneaker waves means that the weather is bad somewhere. . .That's not reassuring, but pretty much summed it up what it is all about! Here's more:
. . . while size matters, a sneaker’s danger is compounded by the speed it’s moving when it hits the shore.
“A lot of times these waves may only be 4-6 feet in the open sea,” says Smith. “But they’re moving at a much higher velocity than we usually see on the coast.” Meteorologists measure the velocity of a moving wave by the “period,” the distance from the bottom of the trough on one side of the wave to the bottom of the trough on the other side.
Smith and his colleague, Warren Blier, got their pencils out for us and calculated that in open waters, where the wave is seeing little-to-no friction, a 5-foot-high wave with a period of 20 seconds will be traveling at a highway speed of around 70 mph, easily twice as fast as the more typical waves we see along the coast. It’s not uncommon for sneaker waves to have periods of 20 seconds or more.
“When the waves begin to feel the beach bottom they will begin to slow down substantially,” says Smith. So that wave with the 20-second period will hit a typical beach at something like the speed of a running adult.
Unfortunately, many of our beaches aren’t typical. “The catch is that along our coast we have many steep beaches that don’t slow the fast-moving wave down,” says Smith, citing as examples Monastery and Carmel River Beaches, located just south of Carmel.Since there's no systematic scientific research done on these feaque waves publicly available yet, and indeed all beaches are not typical, the local practical experiences from coast guards and weather forecasters are most certainly invaluable and should always paid attention to! Beach goings are for enjoyments, nearshore freaque waves are part of the nature's offerings, be on guard! Don't let these unexpected yet expected happenings ruin our well deserved enjoyments!
Mirboo North resident Leighton Erbs died after being swept off rocks near Inverloch on Saturday afternoon.
Tributes were pouring in for Leighton, who was standing with friends on a rock shelf at Eagles Nest, east of Oaks Beach, when a wave swept the group into rough seas just before 1pm.
Life Saving Victoria spokesman Greg Scott said he understood the teenagers were not planning to swim but were engulfed by the force of the wave.
Eagles Nest is "highly hazardous'', according to Surf Life Saving Australia. Its Beachsafe website says the area experiences strong rips and big waves. Police and paramedics performed CPR for nearly an hour on Leighton after he was dragged back to the beach, but were unable to revive him
A search has resumed this morning for a Roscommon based fisherman who was washed off the rocks into the sea in county Clare yesterday.
The incident happened yesterday at an area known as the Fisherman's Climb, at Ailladee, in Co Clare
The same area, on the Atlantic coast between Doolin and Fanore, has been the scene of several previous tragedies.
The alarm was raised at about 5.30pm, but the recovery effort was abandoned as darkness fell.It is always sad to read news like this, a fisherman washed off the rocks into the sea and lost. But it is by no means unusual. It had happened before somewhere else, it probably will happen again in some other places of the world at some other time somehow. Independent.Ie has further details about the case:
The 42-year-old man, believed to be a Latvian national living in Co Roscommon, was washed off the rocks by a rogue wave at an area known locally as the Fisherman's Climb at Ailladee in Co Clare.and
It's understood that man was not wearing a lifejacket and may have been dragged beneath the waves by his heavy clothing.So it was a freaque wave that caused it! And not wearing a lifejacket certainly also played a major role in this tragic case. May this fisherman be rest in peace and could help future cases not to make the same mistake of not wearing lifejacket like he did again.
Thursday back in South Florida, a day after limits for the National Institutes of Health made headlines, it was the fear of food drying up and a prohibition on fishing in waters of Florida Bay that took center stage.
Charter guides received a message from the National Park Service this week informing them that they are not permitted to take clients fishing in Florida Bay until the feds get back to work. That means that more than 1,100 square miles of prime fishing is off limits between the southern tip of the mainland to the Keys until further notice.
The closing affects not only fishing guides, but anyone with a license to conduct business in the park, including tour operators and paddling guides — anyone with a Commercial Use Authorization permit, said Dan Kimball, superintendent of Everglades and Dry Tortugas national parks.
Biscayne National Park is also off limits. Enforcement rangers will be on duty, Kimball said.
Capt. Mike Makowski, owner of Blackfoot Charters in Key Largo, estimates this eliminates 60 percent to 70 percent of his hunting grounds.
