Saturday, October 26, 2013

An open ocean freaque wave picture!

Is this the picture of a freaque wave? I tend to think the answer is YES!. I found this picture from this article that carried a sober title: "Surviving a capsized rowboat in the open ocean". Clearly this wave picture is an open ocean wave picture. It is, in my opinion, unusual. Since we don't usually see a deep open ocean wave picture like this one. Also it appears it happened in an otherwise calm sea condition. That's why I think this is a freaque wave out in the open ocean being captured!  There's not much information available. The caption says "Rough seas Photo: Alvolv via Shutterstock" that's all we have. I assume the photographer must be a Mr. Alvolv and he certainly has my deep and sciencere appreciation for allow me to copy this picture. And of course the author of this article, Joe Spring, for choosing this picture.  He may or may not realize that an open ocean large freaque wave picture like this is far from plentiful like surf pictures.

What I am wondering about right now is whether or not the 1995 New Year's day freaque wave recorded on single point wave gage on the StatOil Draupner platform in the North Sea is something like this one? No one can generalize from a single point measurement to a spatial real wave. We can only guess and conjecture. We need real open ocean measurement! WE NEED REAL OPEN OCEAN MEASUREMENT! Or at least more pictures like this one!!!

Friday, October 25, 2013

What-makes-sneaker-waves-so-sneaky-and-dangerous

Blogs.kqed.org published this very worthy reading article recently with an interesting title: What-makes-sneaker-waves-so-sneaky-and-dangerous by Craig Miller of KQED Science. Some important point that everyone should aware:
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!

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Sunrise at Southern Lake Michigan


Here are two Lake Michigan sun rise pictures as viewed from north Chicago over the weekend.  I copied the awesome pictures from Michael Bennett, who "sheared them publicly" Mega Thanks!



More fascinating picture from his site, well worth a visit or two and more! And here's one from earlier with approaching waves, just marvelous!



Monday, October 21, 2013

Another tragidy Happened in Mirboo North, Victoria, Australia

According to Google: Mirboo North is a town in Victoria, Australia, located 155 km east of Melbourne
A tragic news happened to a Mirboo North resident appeared in theage of Australia:
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

 Another very sad tragic story, another very familiar story plot. This time it happened near Victoria of Australia.  Saying too many "another" is very disheartening, but there just no way to soften the blow. What had happened, happened.  We extend our sincere condolences to the family of the young victim and pray God bless him and may he be rest in peace.  In the mean time, however, we are still left without any clue on how to cope and stop or prevent this kind of thing from happening again and again.










Monday, October 07, 2013

A fisherman's freaque wave tragedy happened in Ailadee, Ireland

This news from Midwest Radio96.1fm tells a simple tragedy:  

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.

Sunday, October 06, 2013

Ocean being shutdown!


On the 3rd day of the month of October of the year AD2013, the federal government was shut down, the dictatorial president determined to shut down the ocean as well. This according to Miami Herald business :
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.
And with the ocean being shut down, no freaque wave will be allowed to happen, of course! So while scientists not able to control, or even understand, freaque waves, a dictator can do anything!

Update:

Government was reopened after 16 days.  Business as usual again.  Of course the ocean was never shutdown. The political game play is just sickening!  Luckily this is God blessed country, the country is robust, her people are all hard working, kind and smart, even when they made a mistake elected an impostor, the country will emerged stronger and better than before. God bless America!




Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/03/v-fullstory/3668028/shutdown-day-3-food-distributor.html#storylink=cpy