One year time lapse of ocean wave height
Mesmerising. Almost hypnotic!
That was amazing.
Gosh, those Aleution Islands must see some action. I wonder if they've ever been surfed?
Here you go Zen. Just up the road from you:
Cheers Stu, I'm packing my booties right now:)
Awesome, I love how you can see the change in seasons...the swap between the North Pacific swell season and the South. It's also incredible just how active the pacific ocean is with Typhoons/hurricanes. I spend quite a bit of time in Taiwan and can confirm the place cops a typhoon swell almost fortnightly during the season - which you can definitely see in this vid. Interesting that typhoons seem to form as a couple, with one bearing sharper west and the other spinning further north.
Fantastic post Stu, really gives a great example of why SA, Sth-WA & VIC/Tas get the best of the solid conditions on offer unless a TC forms somewhere in the Pacific. Amazing how modern satellite data can give you this insight. Gone are the day's where you'd be looking to other more mysterious forms of surf prediction. Timm.
Missed this when first posted...I think you're right Ben...it's mesmerising!
No wonder Dunedin has such great waves...just gets licked by all those swells off the Antartic...if only it was warmer there!
Great article and video. Thanks
Check the time lapse of Earth Null's wind and wave model. This time lapse covers a year from 28/04/2014 so it includes the bumper N Hemi typhoon season. Watch them spin west from the mid-Pacific then northwards before they get absorbed into the westerly winds off the Siberian shield and slingshot back into the North Pacific.
As an aside, it was one of those typhoons Cyrus Sutton was chasing during his recently posted vid of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It's true that the peninsula faces the wrong way for the typical westerly flow, however it catches the occasional typhoon swell, and if ever there was a season to get waves there it was last season. But I digress...
Stick around long enough and you'll see TC Winston do it's little S Pacific dance then rush headlong toward the East Coast. It's interesting to compare the life cycles of cyclones vs typhoon as seen here. Despite differences in nomenclature they're the same weather phenomena, however their formation, severity, and duration depend upon the regional environment. The NW Pacific basin appears much more conducive to longer lasting typhoons than the Coral Sea.