Hawaii experienced “historic” waves over the weekend, which crashed over two-storey buildings and flooded a wedding party.
Forecasters warned that Hawaii’s south-facing shores could see waves of 12 to 16 feet, and the occasional 20 feet wave, over the weekend, including through Sunday night.
Most large summer swells that come from the south are no bigger than about 10 feet, which would trigger a high surf advisory.
But Chris Brenchley, the meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Honolulu said that the waves Hawaii’s south coasts saw were “historic.”
“We had some waves that were reaching 20 feet, 20 feet-plus even,” Brenchley said. “That’s getting on the level of historic.”
The waves crashed over a wedding party, knocking over tables and chairs and sending guests running for cover, only five minutes before the ceremony was set to start.
Sara Ackerman, an author who grew up in Hawaii and attended the wedding, filmed the waves as they barreled ashore.
She said “It just was huge. I was filming it and then it just came over the wall and just completely annihilated all the tables and chairs.”
“It wasn’t like a life-threatening situation by any means whatsoever,” she said. “It was just like, ‘Oh my gosh ... what are we going to do? Where are we going to put the tables?”’
Ackerman said they were able to go ahead with the ceremony and cleaned up the mess after the newlyweds exchanged vows.
“We had the ceremony and it was beautiful, having all the (sea) spray,” she said. “The ocean was really wild. So it was great for the photos.”
Why were the waves in Hawaii so high?
Chris Brenchley, the meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Honolulu, said several factors came together to create such huge waves, as reported by AP.
“Waves over 12 or 15 feet, those become extremely big and really rare to have,” he said. “It’s the largest it’s been in several decades.”
Brenchley said the swell was produced in the South Pacific, where it’s currently the winter season: “They had a particularly strong winter storm where the winds were focused directly towards places like Samoa and then further on to the north into Hawaii.”
Remnants of Hurricane Darby passed south of Hawaii but had no major impact on the surf, he said.
While singular events like this are hard to pin directly to climate change, Brenchley said the warming planet is playing a role.
“The most direct type of impact that we can use with climate change is the sea level rise. Any time you add just even small amounts of water, you raise that sea level just a little bit,” he said.
“And now those impacts will be exacerbated whenever we have a large storm event or a ... high, high tide.”
