Posted on 06/17/2005 8:41:18 AM PDT by blam
. . . and churn up big waves, too
Sid Perkins
From New Orleans, at the Joint Assembly of the American Geophysical Union
As Hurricane Ivan approached the U.S. Gulf Coast last September, it passed right over an array of seafloor sensors. The network detected the largest wave ever measured by instruments—one that towered more than 27 meters from trough to crest.
The 50-kilometer-wide group of 14 instruments was deployed in May 2004 to measure currents on the ocean floor, says William J. Teague, an oceanographer at the Naval Research Laboratory at Bay St. Louis, Miss. Late on the evening of Sept. 15, Ivan—moving northward at a pace of about 18 kilometers per hour and packing winds of around 200 km/hr—swept across the array over a period of several hours.
The seafloor instruments were set up to take pressure data during 8.5-minute intervals every 8 hours. As it happened, no sensors were making measurements when the eye of the hurricane was directly overhead. However, sensors did record the passing of massive waves before and after the hurricane moved through the array. During one of the data-gathering intervals, waves that often reached heights of 20 m were passing over one sensor every 10 seconds, says Teague. The largest wave in that train measured 27.7 m from peak to trough.
Computer models suggest that the storm's strongest winds—those in the wall of the hurricane's eye—could have spawned waves up to 40 m high.
They didn't use imaginary numbers in this report.
Lucky you. Mine reads in Leagues per Week.
You are getting closer, but still not there.
27.7 meters equals 90.9 feet
Just doing it in my head that would be just under 90 feet.
Actually, about 83 if I remember right.
27 X 39.375 in. / 12 =88.59 Ft.
According to the online calculator - 27 meters is 88.58 feet.
And at that tall, what's +/- 7 feet?
You're right. It's about 81 feet. A meter is
roughly equivalent to about 3 feet. I don't
have the conversion factor in front of me.
"How many cubits in a bit?"
Depends entirely on which cubit you are talking about.
The common computation as to the length of the cubit makes it 20.24
inches for the ordinary cubit, and 21.888 inches for the sacred one.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cubit
Skeet Surfin'
Skeet Surfin'
If everybody had a 12-gauge
And a surfboard too
You'd see 'em shootin' and surfin'
From here to Malibu
Because it's totally bitchin'
Ridin' wave to blast the pigeons
And it's so neat shootin' skeets
While you're riding out the heavies all day
First wave, don't get tired
Second wave, aim higher
Third wave, pull and fire
Skeet Surfin', it's alright
omg...
In Pensacola?
The storm surge trapped air under the concrete sections
and actually caused them to float off the support columns.
Easier to remember a "meter stick" is about 40 inches. 40 X 27, then divide by 12...
Hmmmm. I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10. Sorry 27.7 is not correct.
Actually a yard is 3 feet.
A meter is about 9% bigger.
Approx. 90.879 ft or 1090.55 inches.
All the more reason we should never convert to the metric system. A wave of 88.58 feet would never have done as much damage as one that was 27 meters.
100cm = 1 m 2.54cm = 1 in. 12 in = 1 ft.
I can't fathom that.
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