[BITList] Wave taller than a six-storey building sets 'remarkable' world record | World news | The Guardian

[michael J Feltham]

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> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/13/highest-ever-wave-sets-record-iceland-britain-north-atlantic?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=204006&subid=5050029&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2 <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/13/highest-ever-wave-sets-record-iceland-britain-north-atlantic?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=204006&subid=5050029&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2>
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> Wave taller than a six-storey building sets 'remarkable' world record
> UN weather agency recorded 62ft wave in February 2013 in the North Atlantic, in a remote spot between Great Britain and Iceland after a strong cold front
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> Nicole Puglise <https://www.theguardian.com/profile/nicole-puglise> in New York• Tuesday 13 December 2016 15.51 GMT 
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> A surfer rides a wave at Dungeons offshore reef in the Atlantic Ocean outside Cape Town. Photograph: Nic Bothma/EPA
> A towering 19-meter (62.3ft) wave in the North Atlantic has set a world record as the highest ever measured by a buoy, according to the UN’s weather agency.
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> An automated buoy measured the wave at a remote spot between Great Britain and Iceland on 4 February 2013 at 6.00 GMT, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said <http://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/19-meter-wave-sets-new-record> on Tuesday.
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> Taller than a six-storey building, the huge wave occurred after a “very strong cold front” passed through the area, with winds of up to 43.8 knots (50.4mph).
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> “This is the first time we have ever measured a wave of 19 meters. It is a remarkable record,” the WMO assistant secretary general, Wenjian Zhang, said in the statement.
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> Classified as “the highest significant wave height as measured by a buoy” by the WMO Commission for Climatology’s Extremes Evaluation Committee, the wave crushed the previous record of 18.275 meters (59.96ft), measured in December 2007 in the North Atlantic.
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> Wave height is defined as the distance from the crest of one wave to the trough of the next; significant wave height means the average of the highest one-third of waves measured by an instrument.
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> The North Atlantic, between the Grand Banks underwater plateau off Canada, the south of Iceland <https://www.theguardian.com/world/iceland> and the west of Great Britain, is often the setting for gigantic waves, thanks to wind patterns which lead to “intense extra-tropical storms” sometimes called “bombs”, the WMO said.
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> The new wave height has been added to the WMO’s Global Weather & Climate Extremes Archive <https://wmo.asu.edu/content/world-meteorological-organization-global-weather-climate-extremes-archive>, which tracks such milestones. The highest significant wave height measured by a ship observation occurred in the North Atlantic in February of 2000, and measured 29.05 meters (95.03 ft), according to the archive.
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> In the release, Dr Zhang emphasized that, though there have been strides in satellite technology, “the sustained observations and data records from moored and drifting buoys and ships still play a major role” in helping to understand the interaction between weather and ocean.
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> Automated buoys relay data on swells, sea current and temperatures for scientists, seafarers and climate researchers.
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> This article was amended on 13 December 2016 to correct the height of a double-decker bus. It is 4.4m, not 15m.
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