A reflection on Edmund Ftizgerald day!

Such a beautiful ship, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, that lost 38 years ago today. We remember her every year without exception. 29 souls along with her wreckage rest in peace at the bottom of Lake Superior. May God bless them and their families!

A personal memory: I did a preliminary hindcasting of the waves during the disaster presented at the Great Lakes Research Conference in the spring of 1976. I don't remember what was the title I used, but I do remember my old colleague, Bob Pickett, suggested it should be called "How big was the wave that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald"! That turns out to be an unanswerable question. In-spite of all the later further efforts at hindcasting with more sophisticated approaches, we just don't know what had really happened. In 1975, that was 20 years before the Draupner wave being recorded in the North Sea, no one had ever alluded to freaque waves at the time. Now it seems universally accepted that the lost of the Fitz was caused by a freaque wave. It doesn't matter, we'll never know the real facts beyond speculations, scientific or otherwise!

Happened in Wales' Aberystwyth

According to Wikipedia Aberystwyth is a historic market town, administrative centre and holiday resort within Ceredigion, Wales. And here's a picture that comes with an article published in WalesOnline yesterday:

As the article describes: 

This is the terrifying moment a freak wave hit the seafront in Aberystwyth at the height of the weekend's storms - and nearly cost a photographer his life.
The huge surge of water hit the promenade in Aberystwyth at around 7.30pm on Saturday night, knocking photographer Keith Morris to the ground and destroying his £6,000 camera.
The Ceredigion town was among the worst-hit places as gale-force winds battered several parts of the country.

In photographer Keith's own words:

 “I’d been taking pictures of the storm since around 4.30pm in the afternoon as conditions became windier and windier and went back out at around 7.30pm knowing that was high tide. 

"I actually had my back to the sea when the wave hit, I was photographing people watching the storm from the Marine Hotel on the promenade, when, all of a sudden I was knocked flat to the ground by this huge force behind me. 

“I was on the road, under two-feet of water. 

“I’m extremely lucky, if I had been standing closer to the railings on the prom, there’s a good chance I’d have been sucked out to sea and nobody would have been able to rescue me in those conditions.
. . . 

“I’ve been filming these storms for decades, been soaked plenty of times but have never seen anything like this.
 . . .“It was a freak of nature, four or five times bigger than any other wave that hit the prom that night. 

“A completely unique one-off. 

“I’m just thankful I lived to tell the tale.”

He was absolutely correct in being thankful, of course. Because if anything worse happens, any rescue effort will unlikely to be timely and successful.  And we are also being thankful for the eye-witness account he provide, which gives us some indication on what had happen.  Though we are still far away from able to scientifically understand what led to the happening and what to expect in terms of predicting it's happening in the future! We still wish to thank the good lord to keep the lost only in monetary estimates!

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!!!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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

Typhoon Usagi in Southern China

Here are two photos of interest from america.aljazeera.comamerica.aljazeera.com showing the recent Typhoon Usagi visiting Southern China:

A surfer jumps from his board after catching an unusually large wave in Hong Kong's Big Wave Bay on Monday.(Jessica Hromas/Getty Images)

People watch waves hit shore as Typhoon Usagi approaches Shantou in GuangTong province.(Reuters)

Now this second picture posts a nagging question: the big wave is obviously coming, why the two people still standing there not to run away for safety? Are they for real?

By the way here's the path of Usagi that appears aiming directly at Hong Kong and southern edge of Chinese mainland;

Yes, God is in Antarctica too!

This is an article with a clever title "There's no God in Antarctica" that attracted me to take a look. I have never heard of the author, Jo Stewart, or the site vice.com, a magazine of some kind. There are some language used in this article seems to be unnecessary, may be just for the magazine.  Anyway, the article is a super travelogue with super pictures that I have not seen elsewhere. And this video is well worth the watching to feel the ocean in action down there!

I found especially intriguing are the two pictures interior and exterior of the church I don't think I have seen other Antarctica articles ever mention:

along with this narration:

Obviously whoever built Trinity Church on King George Island hadn’t heard the old sailor’s adage, “Below 50 degrees south there is no law; below 60 degrees south there is no God.” This little slice of Russian Orthodoxy is maintained by a priest year-round, and he does such a good job it even has a church-like smell—that unmistakable potpourri of candles, incense, guilt, and shame. That’s an impressive feat given the funk of penguin vomit and seal excrement almost constantly hanging in the air in Antacrtica.

So I find myself admiring the author to go to Antarctica and willing to spend time to visit and experience the church smell!

And this interesting signs picture:

with the background scenery shows surprisingly a calm and tranquil Antarctica Ocean. For the trip of getting down there the author has this to say:

For many, the trek to Antarctica involves sailing from the southern tip of South America and crossing the Drake Passage, a.k.a., “the Drake,”  which is known for whipping up some of the roughest seas on the planet. Just for the record: I hate the Drake. Most travellers get to experience the passage from a comfy cruise ship with an icebreaker hull (still not exactly a picnic), but if you’re in a smaller working yacht, as I was, it’s a whole different kettle of krill. In storms, these yachts lurch, roll, and shake so violently that eating is futile given the inevitable seasickness, sleep is nearly impossible, and a simple task like dressing yourself is pure slapstick. Being surrounded by a churning, featureless gray-black monster that has no regard for your life is a sobering experience for a land dweller.

which is of course no surprise to any one. It also reaffirms that I have no intention of visiting Antarctica even on a cruise ship.  

Upon enjoy reading this superb travelogue I like to register one disagreement with the author -- I would like to change the title to "Yes, there's God in Antarctica too!"

A rogue wave came out of nowhere and rolled us over

The statement "A rogue wave came out of nowhere and rolled us over" is certainly does not seem to be strange or unusual to freaque wave news followers, because it is no longer some rare happenings, it is more frequent than anyone would like to hear! We hear it again this morning from this News article by Chris Trenkmann:

TAMPA - When Harrison Mettling and five of his friends set out for a day of fishing, they never expected to be the ones who were fished out of Tampa Bay.

"We saw the storm coming in.  We thought we could get in in time.  And then it was a little rough," said Mettling.  "It wasn't that bad, and then a rogue wave came out of nowhere and rolled us over." 

Here's the rest of the story:

Mettling, 24, said the once tranquil bay near Weedon Island became more like high seas, and six foot waves began pummeling the 18-foot boat.  The craft's bilge pump seemed to be emptying the water fast enough, until a cord got tangled in the boat's propeller, effectively shutting down the motor.

The helpless boat, unable to steer or power through the waves, capsized.

"When the boat flipped over, it hit me in the head and I was kind of seeing stars for a little bit," Mettling said.  "I couldn't figure out where was up."

Mettling managed to come to his senses, and during the next two hours, swam nearly two miles to shore.

Jared Lyons, 24, and girlfriend Brittany Whitten, 23, recalled the force of the rainfall.

"It hurt," Whitten said.  "It felt like needles."

The Lakeland couple said after setting out in the morning, the weather was virtually perfect until late afternoon.

"We got the worst of it.  We got turned upside-down," Lyons said.

For Whitten, it was her first time fishing.  It might be her last for some time.

"It was terrifying," Whitten said.  "But I caught a fish," she said, trying to put humor in a frightening experience.

The Tampa Police marine unit responded to the emergency call.  Their boat reached three of the boaters who were struggling in waist deep water.  It was too shallow to get them by boat, so officer Randy Lopez got into the bay and reached them in person.

Lyons and Whitten were rescued by a passerby.

"it's a recipe for disaster if you're not prepared out there on the water," Lopez said, noting that none of the boaters was wearing any life jackets.

"This is a prime example that if they had the life jackets on, they could have been safe," Lopez said.

Mettling said he won't make that mistake next time.

"Whenever you see a storm coming in, put on your life jackets and get in as quickly as possible," Mettling recommended.  "Don't try to wait and catch that last fish.  Go ahead and head home."

This last comment by Mr. Mettling is clearly a very sound advice based from his own experience.And of course never ever neglect to wear life jacket by any means! Bad weather and freaque waves are to be expected, please make certain don't ever get caught unprepared out there!

Mid-autumn Harvest moon

This was the rising of the September full moon I took early Wednesday evening. According to earthsky.org the skylore says this is the Harvest Moon of 2013 since it is closest to the autumnal equinox this year on September 22.  For Chinese people this is also the mid-autumn moon, supposedly the brightest of all the full moons of the year. Happy mid-autumn moon festival everyone!

Lightening over the ocean and twin water sprout over the lake

Here are two Pictures of the Day from Washington Post showing two over water phenomena: Lightening over the ocean near Maine and twin water sprout over the lake near Wisconsin:

9/11/13 Robert F. Bukaty, AP  Lightning strikes north of Mackworth Island in Portland, Maine.

9/12/13 Kevin Poirier, Kenosha News/AP  Twin water spouts form on Lake Michigan southeast of Kenosha, Wisconsin.

A fascinating coastal ocean wave picture

Surfing on the Internet -- yea, the only kind of surfing that will not get me wet!-- I came across this picture from this site called "the open" which I find fascinating. The photographer has this to say "About the Shot": " Morning offshore winds perfectly groomed this wave as the sunrises." Rather poetic, don't you think?. It looks like a long swell kind of wave lazily propagated over in the morning breeze as  the sun rises, at the end the wave curled up, and expectedly or unexpectedly broke.  Was it by wind or was the energy exhausted?  The whole picture looked so calm and tranquil. All the credit and admirations go to the photographer, Myles McGuinness, for captured this in credible moment and this scene. I am not allowed to copy the picture, so I'll refrain from attempting to do it. Just go visit the site and enjoy the pictures there and be fascinated!

What's 'freaque wave' in Chinese language?

What's 'freaque wave' in Chinese language?

I don't know. But I do have a suggestion:
異常波
which literally translates to be strangely unusual waves, I think it generally includes the implication of freaque in the words.

In Taiwan, the Republic of China, I understand their local fishermen do encounter freaque waves not infrequently.  One statistic indicated that there were 50 cases recorded during the 50 year period of 1949-1999 many of them fatal.  The local fishermen had rather unflatteringly called the wave
瘋狗波
which means the ribbi-dog wave. It certainly carried out what a freaque wave truly meant to the fishermen out there when they encounter it. No one seems to be inclined to provide an alternative term for this folksy term yet.

Strangely enough, the mainland China doing just all western scientific researches available, but I have yet to see them doing creditable research on freaque waves per se.  I guess the ruling regime is so superstitious that they are scared of repeating the same history of Boris Yeltsin revolution that toppled  the old USSR that can still happen anytime there. The power that be, accusing people "anti-revolution" all the time but will not allow people using that term, would not even allow words like rogue, freak, freaque to exist either, so no research on freaque waves naturally. Pity!

A painting of ocean waves in the open sea

When I downloaded this, I thought it was a photo picture of ocean waves, but it turned out to be an art oil painting on a 31.89 in by 39.37 canvas:

The Spanish artist's name is Carmen Alonso, I can't find out any other informations about him (or her). As I was impressed by the scenery of large waves and thinking it was real, now knowing it's a painting, I can't help wandering whether or not the scenery is or can be real. It's waves from many different directions come together at an instant.  I guess I can not point out any specific indications to say that was not real, we can only terribly impressed with the artist's talents, skill, and vivid imagination. At the bottom of the painting there's a long patch of white foam.  Could it be the aftermath of a breaking freaque wave? Well I am imagining.  If a freaque wave occurred out there in the middle of the vast ocean, no one is out there to witness it, hence it had never happened!  Really?

August 21, 2013 Full moon, another blue moon.

Here's the full moon last night which is the 7th lunar month full moon this year as seen from Southeast Michigan. 

As this is the 3rd full moon of a 4 full moon summer season, by one definition the full moon last night is also a blue moon.  I was a little puzzled at first because this one was the only full moon of the month, how can that be a blue moon?  Well what I didn't know is that there are different definitions of blue moon. 

Anyway "once in a blue moon", we just had another one, so it goes!

Santa a surfer?

Now this is something to behold -- a surfing Santa!

May be I am just being ignorant, I have never seen or thought of a connection between winter Christmas Santa and summer surfing.  This picture was copied from Drudge Report with its headline "Desperate Retailers Start Xmas Sales in August" referencing to this CNBC article. Is Santa s surfer? Well, why not?

Seiche global scale!

According to Wikipedia:

A seiche (/ˈseɪʃ/ SAYSH) is a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes, reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbors and seas. The key requirement for formation of a seiche is that the body of water be at least partially bounded, allowing the formation of the standing wave.

The term was promoted by the Swiss hydrologist François-Alphonse Forel in 1890, who was the first to make scientific observations of the effect in Lake Geneva, Switzerland.[1] The word originates in a Swiss French dialect word that means "to sway back and forth", which had apparently long been used in the region to describe oscillations in alpine lakes.

People in the North America Great Lakes area, especially Lake Erie, generally familiar with seiche motion between Buffalo, New York and Toledo, Ohio after high northeast winds along Lake Erie main axis. It os interest to note Seiche can also be global between Japan and Norway fjord after the 2011 earthquake as reported in this UK Daily Mail article with an interesting long title: "How 2011 Japanese earthquake created freak 5 ft waves that terrified locals on the other side of the world -- in Norway," The report is based on the Live Science article written by Becky Oskin: Norway's Weird Waves Traced to Japan Earthquake. The remarkable research was done by Stein Bondevik, a geologist at Sogn og Fjordane University College in Sogndal, Norway and his team. The findings were published July 3 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.  Here's what happened that inspired the study according the the Live science article:

The roiling seas surprised and shocked Norwegians when the waves rolled in after 7 a.m. local time on March 11, said lead study author Stein Bondevik, a geologist at Sogn og Fjordane University College in Sogndal, Norway. The waves measured nearly 5 feet (1.5 meters) from trough to crest (their lowest to highest point). No damage was reported, however. "Luckily, they happened at low tide," Bondevik said.

Yes, luckily, indeed, as compared to what had happened in Japan.

A moonset picture

Here's an interesting picture provided by NASA -- the moonset of a new moon.  It is certainly not easy for an aim-and-shoot everyday camera to do.  This one was taken last night over Taiwan.

Here's the explanation NASA provided to accompany the picture:

Explanation: It took three worlds to create this simple image. The first world was the Earth, which was quite prominent. The dividing line running horizontally below the middle separates sea from sky. On this part of the Earth, it was almost nighttime. The second world was the Moon, which was almost invisible. The Moon had its unilluminated half masked by the red sunset glow of Earth's sky. A thin sliver of the new Moon was visible, a crescent that traces the bright curving line. The third world was the Sun, which does not appear directly. All of the light recorded in the image originated from the Sun. The above half-second exposure was taken last week from Anping, Taiwan. A few minutes after this image was taken the Earth had spun just a little bit further -- forcing theMoon to follow the Sun into the sea -- and the horizon to become dark.

Anyway clearly the ocean was rather calm at the moonset time. Or may be the ocean surface was too far away to see minutes before the sun rises for the new day!