Ottawa, Feb 13 : A four-storey rogue wave measuring 58 feet (17.6 meters) tall was recorded off the coast of Vancouver Island, breaking all records for proportionality of size of surrounding waves. “They look like a large four-story lump sticking out of the water with a large peak and big troughs before it”, CNN qouted CEO of Marine Labs Scott Beatty as saying. “A rogue wave is actually just a wave that is large compared to the surrounding wave field”, one of the lead researchers on rogue waves at the University of Victoria Johannes Gemmrich stated.
He further stated that the overall size doesn’t matter, but the comparison in size to other waves does.
“Only a few rogue waves in high sea states have been observed directly, and nothing of this magnitude. The probability of such an event occurring is one in 1,300 years”, he added. The first rogue wave recorded, known as “The Draupner Wave,” was measured in 1995 off the coast of Norway at 84 feet (25.6 meters) with surrounding waves of approximately 40 feet (12 meters) while the second record-breaking rogue wave recorded in November 2020 measured at almost 58 feet (17.6 meters) in comparison to surrounding waves of around 20 feet (6 meters).
