‘In November of 2020, a freak wave came out of the blue, lifting a lonesome buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters high (58 feet).

The four-story wall of water was finally confirmed in February 2022 as the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded at the time.

Such an exceptional event is thought to occur only once every 1,300 years. And unless the buoy had been taken for a ride, we might never have known it even happened….

“Proportionally, the Ucluelet wave is likely the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded,” explained physicist Johannes Gemmrich from the University of Victoria in 2022.

 

“Only a few rogue waves in high sea states have been observed directly, and nothing of this magnitude…

Unfortunately, a 2020 study predicted wave heights in the North Pacific are going to increase with climate change, which suggests the Ucluelet wave may not hold its record for as long as our current predictions suggest.”…’

 

— via ScienceAlert