Hurricane Ivan generated monster waves (90 ft+) - study (Reuters)

[Up2Late]

Hurricane Ivan generated monster waves - study

04 Aug 2005 19:24:12 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Writes through with quotes from researchers)

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Hurricane Ivan, which caused a swathe of destruction across the Caribbean last September before crashing into the U.S. Gulf coast, generated ocean waves more than 90 feet (27 metres) high, researchers said on Thursday.

They may have been the tallest waves ever measured with modern instruments, suggesting that prior estimates for maximum hurricane wave heights are too low, William Teague of the Naval Research Laboratory at the Stennin Space Center in Mississippi and colleagues reported. "Our results suggest that waves in excess of 90 feet are not rogue waves but actually are fairly common during hurricanes," Teague said in a telephone interview.

A wave that big would snap a ship in two or dwarf a 10-floor building, Teague said. And the sensors may have missed the largest waves, which the authors estimate had crest-to-trough wave heights exceeding 40 meters or 130 feet, the researchers said....

(clip)

..."So when there were reports of an 80-foot (24-metre) wave striking an oil platform, they called it a rogue wave. We think it wasn't a rogue wave," Teague said. Ivan sank seven oil platforms and set five adrift, Teague said, and his team's findings might help explain it...."

<http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N04634066.htm>
(more at link above)

[meganmonkey]

1. God, that is some scary power to even think about, a wave that big

That's fucking intense

:yoiks:

[Up2Late]

5. Yep, Definitely un-Surfable

I've read articles about "Big Wave" surfers, surfing 50ft. waves off of California, and they said that if you wiped out, you would almost certainly die, because it would be similar to a 5 Story building falling on you.

I can see how a 90-130 foot waves would sink an Oil Platform.

[Bosso 63]

19. I'm not so sure

It would make a Jacuzzi in my wet suit, but check this out.http://www.sonypictures.co.uk/movies/ridinggiants/

[Kraklen]

24. Have you seen "Condition: Black?"

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/conditionblack/

Good stuff.

[Bosso 63]

25. Thanks! I'll check it out!

[pinniped]

29. Great film, reminds me of Point Break when the evil surfer dude Bodhi...

rides the great big wave into the sky.

[Up2Late]

28. Here's a good website for the break I was referring to, Mavericks

Nice video clips on this page, but I like when they surf the wave that roll so fast that they have to be towed into the wave with a Jet ski:

<http://mavericks.bolt.com/>

[Dover]

2. Anybody hear what happened to the oil platform that was already

at floating at a severe angle in the last big hurricane last month?
There was a story in LBN about its tenuous situation.

[ewagner]

4. Haven't heard anything

either it's under control....or....

it's an HUGE environmental disaster and they aren't talking about it.

[Up2Late]

7. What part of the Gulf is it in, I'll see what I can find...

...but that type of thing is hard to find, unless you know where to look.

[finecraft]

8. It's a BP rig called Thunderhorse

We got an update last week that after having 4 pumps going 24 hours a day for a couple weeks they got almost all of the water out of the flooded lower pontoons. At that time, they didn't know what made the pontoons collapse and fill with water, but they were sending the information back to engineering to figure out what went wrong. They weren't sure that the hurricane made the pontoons collapse, or if it was some sort of design/fabrication flaw. Go figure.

[Up2Late]

11. But do you know what coastline it's near or city it's close to...

(i.e. 150 miles S.E. of Galveston, TX, etc.) or even the Longitude and Latitude numbers?:shrug:

[finecraft]

13. 240 miles S.E. of New Orleans n/t

[Up2Late]

14. Still looking but check this out for now, here's a before and after...

...alone the Louisiana and Mississippi Coasts. Check out all pollution and silt Ivan stirred up and washed into the Gulf:

2003 Before:
Date: 2003/294 - 10/21


2004 After Ivan:

<>

For a closer look, go to the link below, the 2003 Picture is labeled Date: 2003/294 - 10/21 (5th one from the top)

<http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?search=Southern+United+States&date=>

[Dover]

12. Thanks a bunch! So I guess that second hurricane didn't add to the damage

It was in trouble with that ballast problem from Dennis just as the second hurricane Emily was approaching. I guess she wasn't strong enough to undo their efforts up to that point.

thanks again.

On edit: Found this site update on Thunderhorse -
http://redinktexas.blogspot.com/2005/07/updated-and-bumped-thunderhorse-stable.html

[Up2Late]

15. Here are some pictures from mid July

More at this link, including a link to a U.S. Coast Guard Video, neither show what looks like any Oil slicks, and that link you had said the Platform had been righted.

<http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=11305>

[applegrove]

3. Dang - you think a satellite could have taken at least one photo!!

[evlbstrd]

6. I've been at sea in hurricanes.

That is no surprise to me at all. And that was 30 years ago.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

9. Wow! That's some inteligent design for ya.

:evilgrin:

[MGKrebs]

10. I've sometimes wondered what ships in the Caribbean do

when a hurricane is present. Can't really tell exactly where it's going to go. Does shipping traffic pretty much stop for a few days at a time?

[Seabiscuit]

16. Maybe the Texas oil companies have known this for some time and

that's why they're always boosting oil prices on the stock market everytime there's a hurricane on its way. They must love hurricanes, which just help them keep jacking up their prices until the public is used to paying outrageous prices at the gas pump, hurricanes or no hurricanes, eh?

[Up2Late]

17. Exactly, but to be fair, they said on one of the Oil Investor sites...

...that if the that big Oil Platform had sank, it would have been a $1.2 Billion Dollar investment loss.

But then again, Exxon/Mobil made something like a $7 Billion Dollars in profit last Quarter, so SCREW THEM!

[eyepaddle]

21. The rigs are all shut down and evacuated when a hurricane

approaches. That knocks out at least 15% of total US supply, refiners worry about idling their equipment so they go into panic buy mode to amke sure they have stuff to run through their pipes.

Back in the day I used to work offshore, of it was a terrible, horrible way to make a living. Ironically I liked Hurricanes, they were some of the rare times me and all of my friends would be on land simultaneously. On the downside, if the storm approaches too fast sometimes they can't get the crew off in time, so a rig will just shut down production and go into full "batten down the hatches and fight for your lives" mode.

Those lifeboats were pretty high tech, but I had trouble thinking of anything more unpleasant than spending a few days in one!

[Up2Late]

22. Maybe you would know then, if or when an oil drilling or pumping...

...platform is sunk or set adrift, as this article says, what do they do to keep an oil spill from happening?

I not really referring to any oil that was stored on-board the rig, I'm asking about if they have trouble with a broken pumping pipe (for pumping oil out of the Ocean floor) snapping off and gushing oil into the water. How do they avoid that?

[eyepaddle]

26. That's not really my area,

but they do have check valves every so often on the pipelines--if nothing else to shutdown fuel to a fire once the rig stops pumping. If it is a free floating (as opposed to a leg on bottom structure) the actual wellhead stuff is on the ocean bottom and NOT the rig surface. They'd have that closed down, which would prevent oil from gushing into the sea. This is more for asset protection than pure altruism.

I would imagine a fair bit of oil may have leaked due to the sinkings though, however almost cerainly not to the Exxon Valdez levels or any such.

[Up2Late]

18. Kick n/t

:kick:

[noonwitch]

20. I love Michigan beaches-no hurricanes and no sharks!

Yeah, you can only swim for about 3 months, but still.

[AX10]

23. What causes them?

[Up2Late]

27. Contrary to what most people think, about 90% of all Ocean Waves

are Wind created.

But with this Hurricane, these waves came from the "Eye Wall" where the winds were 140+ mph.

Plus, the Low Pressure at the center of a Major Hurricane, actually Sucks the surface water upward, which is what make up most of the "Storm surge."