Elaine Bunting's blog
Web log entry dated 10 March 2008
60ft seas in the Atlantic
How many times have you heard the expression 'waves as big as houses'? Enough to dull the analogy - and often it's an exaggeration anyway.
But just have a look at this data recorded at 0700 today from the K2 weather buoy, 150 WSW of Mizen Head in Ireland. Check out the wave heights: over 58ft.
The average height of a two-storey house is a less than a third of that.
Theoretically, some 10% of waves within this wave spectrum will be much higher. The factor generally used to calculate the height of these one-in-ten waves is 1.27, so that means they could be up to 73ft.
Elaine Bunting
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