Analyses find warning signs preceding some mystery swells!

EXTREME SWELLS  A rogue wave around 18 meters high continues on its way after crashing into a ship off the coast of Charleston, S.C.

NOAA

Sailors have long told remarkable stories of monstrous, ship-damaging waves that seem to come out of nowhere. But new research analyzing these rogue waves in and out of the ocean reveals that at least some of them are foreseeable.

A telltale set of conditions precedes the appearance of bright flashes in tabletop laser experiments that are similar to rogue water waves, researchers report in the May 29 Physical Review Letters. The results suggest that multiple processes, some more predictable than others, can lead to these extreme events. “People in the field have been waiting for something like this to be done,” says Mattias Marklund, a theoretical physicist at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden