Brief #011 · DRAUPNER 1995

The wave that proved rogue waves are real

Weather & sea

On 1 January 1995 a laser on the Draupner platform measured a 25.6 m wave in a 12 m sea. Forecasts give significant wave height; single waves can be nearly twice that.

Transcript

On New Year's Day 1995, a laser in the North Sea caught a giant.

It pointed straight down from the Draupner gas platform.

The sea was already rough: significant wave height, twelve metres.

Then the record spiked. Twenty-five point six metres, crest to trough.

That's about eight storeys of water.

A rogue wave is more than twice the size of the waves around it. This one was.

It was one of the first confirmed measurements of its kind.

Later, satellites found more than ten waves over 25 metres in just three weeks.

So read your forecast right. Significant wave height is the average of the highest third. About once an hour, expect a single wave nearly twice that.

Follow for the next brief.

Sources

1. McAllister et al. (2018), Laboratory recreation of the Draupner wave, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, doi:10.1017/jfm.2018.886
2. ESA: Ship-sinking monster waves revealed by ESA satellites
3. Wikipedia: Draupner wave (gas platform, laser) – secondary
4. NOAA Ocean Service: What is a rogue wave?
5. NOAA National Data Buoy Center: How are significant wave height … calculated?
6. NOAA National Weather Service Miami: Waves