Posted on 06/26/2025 7:01:32 AM PDT by jerod
Experts still trying to figure out cause of Saturday's rapid fluctuation in water levels
Alan Auld of Shuniah, Ont., said he stepped out to look at Lake Superior on Saturday and was among people who saw the waters receding — something he compared to the draining of a bathtub.
"At first we joked to everyone saying, 'Who pulled the plug?'" said Auld.
"To see Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world, can do something like that, that's quite powerful. So we were in awe."
On the east border of Thunder Bay, Shuniah is a municipal township along Lake Superior's northern shoreline.
The massive fluctuations in water levels have also intrigued multiple scientists, who think the area experienced a meteotsunami — a type of tsunami wave that can cause water levels near shorelines to rise and fall rapidly.
While traditional tsunamis are caused by seafloor movement like earthquakes, meteotsunamis are linked to fast-moving weather conditions such as thunderstorms.
A big change in air pressure accompanied with high wind speeds can play into generating a meteotsunami wave, said Eric Anderson, an associate professor at the Colorado School of Mines who has been studying meteotsunamis for over a decade.
Anderson said researchers are analyzing atmospheric conditions and water-level data to figure out what happened last weekend.
"We have enough evidence to say that this was a meteotsunami-like event," he said.
In order to officially confirm it was a meteotsunami, Anderson said, researchers need to create a computer model that simulates how the waves move around inside the lake, which will take some time.
Seiche or meteotsunami? Auld and others who saw the water-level fluctuations thought it was a seiche.
Anderson said a seiche is a standing wave that oscillates, like water sloshing back and forth in a bathtub. In Lake Superior, a seiche period would last about eight hours, he said.
Anderson said the event Saturday occurred too fast to be a seiche and was more consistent with a meteotsunami...
In 1954 a similar event occurred in Lake Michigan resulting in the deaths of 8 people in Chicago.
The Left today will be: Global warming made the water levels drop!!!
I know the left like I know every square inch of my wife’s glorious naked body.
Reminds me of the recent boating accident this past weekend on Lake Tahoe in California, eight people were killed:
“The accident occurred when a sudden storm brought winds gusting up to 35 mph and waves as high as 8 feet, capsizing the boat. Ten people were aboard the vessel, and only two survived.
The storm was described by witnesses and locals as unexpectedly intense and unlike anything seen in decades at Lake Tahoe, a region typically known for its serene and sunny conditions.”
I experienced a seiche wave on lake Huron in 1995. It was caused by a derecho storm. First the water came in much higher than normal, so much so that it deposited a boat up into the side yard of a cottage. Then it went out, exposing about 200 yards of the near shoreline. It was an odd experience. Eventually the boat had to be lifted onto its trailer with a crane.
CC
Did I see somewhere that a huge wave killed some people in Lake Tahoe recently? What’s going on?
Thanks j. Not really a catastrophe, but probably of interest. :^)
HUH!
Moses was the first to take advantage of a meteotsunami.
The people were in awe, and Moses ended up in the history books.
Yet, today, we have to have a computer to do everything.
same here and she is a fine looking woman.
Great Lakes Meteotsunami Experts Hone in on Big Wave Forecasts
By Jeff Gillies
Environmental Monitor
July 2, 2018
* the Great Lakes typically see around 100 meteotsunamis a year, and a destructive one every 10 years.
*As a thunderstorm propagates over a lake, atmospheric pressure pushes down on the surface. That causes a rise in water level — a wave — on the leading edge of the storm, just like pushing down on a waterbed. If the storm happens to be moving across the lake at the same speed as that wave, it can continue feeding energy into the wave and growing it to a potentially destructive size.
* A meteotsunami approaching a Great Lakes shore won’t look like a normal wave with breaking action the people are familiar with. Instead, they come on as a quick flood of water.
* A seiche is a single large wave caused by strong winds but on the scale of an entire lake. Scientists typically describe it as water sloshing back and forth in a bathtub, with lake levels dropping on one end and rising on the other, oscillating every 4 to 14 hours or so depending on the location.
* a meteotsunamis fall between seiches and typical wind waves seen washing up on beaches every few seconds, with a wave period of between 2 minutes and 2 hours.
* the waves are particularly dangerous once they decouple from the storm that created them. Though the storm may dissipate or blow inland, the wave is already in the lake. A meteotsunami that strikes one shore under foreboding skies can reflect and travel to the other side, swamping a beach with perfect swimming weather.
With the Edmund Fitzgerald in mind, scientists confirm rogue waves on Lake Superior
1975, 40 ft boat, Lake Huron, 12 ft “chop”
Thanks for posting. I learned something today.
Really interesting. Thank you.
That’s what I thought of. Wonder if the red sea has ever had a Meteotsunami.
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