The most extreme rogue wave on record

A simulation of the MarineLabs buoy riding a rogue wave off the coast of Ucluelet, Vancouver Island in November, 2020.

Credit: MarineLabs

[tinygingervitus]

A rogue wave is defined as twice the height of the waves surrounding it. What made this wave truly terrifying is, compared to the regular waves around it, it was three times their height.

[silvonias]

I was shocked at the first big wave, thinking it was the one. Then right after the real one followed and I lost my shit. Scary

[ondinebelacqua]

I felt the drop in my belly just watching this

[tumeric]

ppl during ancient times have claimed they saw actual whales inside these waves, honestly that makes rogue waves sound even crazier

[RandomNarwhal]

It’s truly astounding how even such rudimentary graphics can still force such a physical reaction. Just seeing the wave come up, crest high enough enough on the screen and rise higher then the buoy, shook me to the pit of stomach.

[nubs]

The whole surface of the ocean dropped right before it came. Makes sense, cool to see in action. Gotta love physics

[darkprose]

It’s only a bunch of moving lines and it still makes me shudder.

[loadingnewads]

the surface rising above my screen’s upper bound is crazy

[dalane]

Old friend of mine who was on the Murmansk convoy run, Navy escorting freighters, once told me, son, never, never go in to the Atlantic in anything smaller than a cruiser. Of course this was before the smart people actually believed in Rogue Waves, he did though, he lived through more than one of them. And when you think one nearly sunk the QM1 with 16, 000 men on board in the 1940’s and another one nearly took out the QE2 in the early eighties. Those are two big ships, 80, 000 tonnes, no one wonder my old friend reckoned nothing smaller than a cruiser, and he didnt seem to sure about that.

[clintmorrisful]

Why did I feel like I was drowning when the big one came 😂

[TheCompleteMental]

"Oh that wasnt so bad, just went up and down a li-- WHAT THE FUCK?!"

[_LilRascal_]

The scariest thing about rogue waves is that for most of history nobody believed they were possible. Then humanity developed steel double-hulled ships and reports of rogue waves skyrocketed.

This means that for almost the entirety of humanity’s history on the seas, whoever saw a rogue wave didn’t make it back to talk about it.

[allenstockburger]

I always love how calm, yet dangerous it looks right after the peak intensity. Like the rogue wave robbed the surrounding water of most of its energy, leaving it to froth and churn

[FreakMeat]

You can see some of the power in how it pushes the buoy cable around despite the small surface area.

[jakemason]

That is NOT the most extreme rogue wave on record. In fact, it is not even close.
The paper 'Oceanic rogue waves' (1) by Dysthe, Krogstad and Muller reports on an event in the Black Sea which was far more extreme than the Ucluelet wave. The Ucluelet wave surpassed the significant wave height by a factor of 2.93. The Datawell Waverider buoy reported a wave which was 3.91 times the significant wave height, as detailed in the paper. Inspection of the buoy after the recording revealed no malfunction (2).
According to the authors assessing that data, the wave was 'anomalous', which is indeed correct, as that is the *real* most extreme wave recorded with a high-precision instrument.
The paper also reports even more extreme waves from a different source, but these were possibly overestimated, as assessed by the data's own authors.
Furthermore, the paper 'Rogue waves in 2006-2010' (3) by I.Nikolkina and I. Didenkulova also reveals waves more extreme than the Ucluelet wave.
From the paper, we infer that in 2006 a 21-meter wave appeared in a sea with a significant wave height of 3.9 meters. The factor difference is 5.38, *almost twice that of the Ucluelet wave*!
The paper also reveals the MV Pont-Aven incident as marginally more extreme than the Ucluelet event. The paper also assesses a report of an 11m wave in a significant wave height of 1.9 meters, but casts doubt on that claim.
Finally, perhaps the most extreme rogue wave event ever recorded (but not by a high-precision instrument), is revealed by Craig B. Smith's paper 'Extreme waves and ship design' (4). The incident saw a 30-meter wall of water arise in 'calm seas'.
To conclude, I accept that the Ucluelet wave was interesting, but you should have checked your facts before citing that news, as many other papers reveal that the claim made by the Ucluelet wave researchers is completely wrong.

[rohner]

In November of 2020, a freak wave came out of the blue, lifting a lonesome buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters high (58 feet).

[tinman]

Saw something like this happen at night on a beach in Rio once. You hear the waves crashing as you're walking down the sidewalk along the sand lit by street lights. Then all of a sudden it goes quiet, and you see this dark thing rising where there should be whitecaps and then it crashes with a roar. We were well away from it and no one was in the water, but man that was creepy.

[mrx]

Imagine ancient people witnessing a freak wave whilst out at sea; it must have felt like they were witnessing the wrath of Poseidon himself. Makes me wonder what thoughts must've been running through their mind...

[augustday]

Seeing this, it's easy to imagine many ships throughout history being lost to such gargantuan waves.

[Slurpified]

Im not terrified because of how big it is.. Im terrified because of how fast that b came up outta nowhere.