People Run From Huge 33 Ft Waves In Spain! (Photos)

"People run from huge waves crashing onto San Sebastian's seafront, northeast of Spain February 17, 2006. The combination of a full moon season, a squall over the Cantabrian Sea and heavy wind gusts reaching speeds of 110 kilometres (68 miles) per hour contributed to sea tides to levels not seen in the area for the past 3 years, with waves as high as 10 meters (33 feet)."

Photos:
news.search.yahoo.com... r=&c=news_photos

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I don't know if this has been posted here yet under Current Events given it happened just the other day. If it has feel free to delete this thread or post a link to the original because I couldn't find it.

I wonder what astronomers are saying about this? How rare is this occurance?

[edit on 19-2-2006 by Samsonite]

I'm thinking due to climate change etc we will have to expect these kind of events becoming more common place.

Not a good time to buy sea front property.

LOL...10m/33 ft my a$$.

More like a 10m/33 ft "spray". If a 10 metre wave crashed where those people are, they wouldn't be there.

Cheers

JS

Yeah I was just going to say, those looked like 5 foot waves, not 33.



[edit on 19-2-2006 by ImplementOfWar]

If a big piece of the ocean were coming at me, spray or not, I would be getting out of the way too. That were one big ole chunk o'the ocean.

Those pictures looked pretty ominous to me, not your typical California surfing waves.

This is serious stuff. Anyone know what caused it?

Originally posted by jumpspace
LOL...10m/33 ft my a$$.

More like a 10m/33 ft "spray". If a 10 metre wave crashed where those people are, they wouldn't be there.

Cheers

JS

Whie I agree the story certainly makes it sound worse than it appears, "makes it play" as we say round here, the sea wall is deflecting the water straight up thus making it look less dangerous than it is.

Those really could be 33' waves but from the perspective the photo is at it's hard to tell. By the looks of the breakers on the sea wall I'd say those were some mondo waves.

There is no way a 5' or even 10' wave would crash against a sea wall that high like that.

Springer...

Originally posted by dgtempe
Those pictures looked pretty ominous to me, not your typical California surfing waves.

This is serious stuff. Anyone know what caused it?

It happens all the time in Spain and everywhere you have sea walls. What took place is a wave of perhaps 5 to 10 ft hit the sea wall which stopped the wave suddenly, causing the resulting splash to look like it was a huge wave when it was not.

My guess is this time a News photographer just happened to be there when it happened.

The waves could have easily 20 ft when they broke maybe 150 yards offshore(all dependent on swell height and the local topography on the ocean's shore bottom), after that the waves become breakers and loose height and momentum as they approach the shore as surges as water. What is shown hitting the the sea wall was something on the order of 5 ft(almost 2m) surges of water. Anyone would get knocked off their feet and tossed around if they were over come by a 5 foot surge of water. Now the surges of water are pictured hitting the sea wall and the water has no where to go up as spray, some of the water will make it over the wall and push water on the street while most of it will be reflected back to the sea as a small wave. It is possible with the right bottom topography for an ocean wave to crash into the seawall or even a cresting wave. If cresting waves were hitting the seawall 1. the sea wall would not last very long and 2. No one would be able to stand there and not get knocked off their feet and probaly sucked out to sea.


All that happened there was an astromically high tide combined with storm surf.

I wonder what astronomers are saying about this? How rare is this occurance?

From your own post...

not seen in the area for the past 3 years

So nothing really new here.

Municipal Authorities closed the Promenade when they were warned about the huge waves coming to the north coast of Spain. The access to the Urgull mount was closed for walkers. Even though, many people reached the Promenade to look at the waves. Some of them were injured.

High waves are usual on the North of Spain because the sea is brave, but the last waves were considered as "different" reaching up to 9 metres high. Which is completely unusual.

In Donostia, cars parked on the Promenade were reached by the waves, moved away by the sea and - consequently - damaged.

Meanwhile, surfers could not avoid surfing such unusual waves, the highest that occurr in the Cantábrico, up to now.

Also the maritime suffered from the high waves. Arrival and departures of boats had to be delayed because of the force of the sea.

An old fisherman died after his small boat was strongly hit by a wave.

Source: Diario Vasco

Some pictures of surfers during the high waves:






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