THE 30-metre wave that swamped a 22-metre fishing boat in The Perfect Storm was no cinematic exaggeration. Hurricane Ivan created such waves in the Atlantic Ocean in 2004, according to data collected during the hurricane.
Sensors in the Gulf of Mexico measured one wave that towered 28 metres high. But the sensors missed the storm’s peak, says Bill Teague of the US Naval Research Laboratory near Bay St Louis, Mississippi. At the height of the hurricane’s fury, sustained winds of about 225 kilometres per hour must have whipped up waves as high as 40 metres. But the sensors, which monitored…
