Chicago does the waves

Posted at 1:27 PM on October 19, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Weather

NewsCut has a few readers in Chicago, so here's hoping this can be verified firsthand. The Chicago Tribune is reporting the area will be hit by 25 foot waves from Lake Michigan later today.

Twenty-five foot waves? Imagine what Minnesota meteorologists could do with such a warning.

The jogging paths along the lakefront have been closed, but not Lake Shore Drive.

Here's what a 10-foot wave looked like in late September.

View more videos at: http://nbcchicago.com.

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Comments (9)

In an article I saw earlier accompanying that September video it was stated that those bikers and pedestrians went around barriers to continue on the closed path. Therefore when I watched the video a certain phrase came to my mind in between chuckles*..."Serves them right."

* - I don't feel bad about it since other than a likely damaged iProduct or other electronic devices, they all seemed to be ok.

Posted by JB | October 19, 2011 2:10 PM

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Last Friday, the 14th, there were Storm Warnings up on Lake Superior for 27-39 foot waves. I didn't hear anything about it in the Metro area. Perhaps it has to happen on Lake Minnetonka to get noticed.

Posted by Matt B | October 19, 2011 2:19 PM

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I would buy tickets to watch that live. Pass the popcorn!

Posted by gml4 | October 19, 2011 2:19 PM

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//or 27-39 foot waves

Is this like the way rivers are measured? For example, flood stage of the Mississippi at St. Paul being 14 feet, but it's really NOT 14 feet above what it usually is (more like 3 or 4.

I have a hard time believing 40 foot waves at the shore, though I did lose the bet with Mrs. NewsCut who claimed -- correctly -- that people surf on Lake Superior.

Posted by Bob Collins | October 19, 2011 3:00 PM

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As a Duluthian, I have seen some big waves. They come though in the winter when storms tend to form on the back of low pressures moving east, giving wind coming from the east. This video shows one of those storms. You can tell, also, that the wind has pushed a lot of the lake up against the shore so the canal seems a lot more full than usual.

A quick note (via Wikipedia)- The Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a storm with winds over 80 mph and waves over 30 feet high.

Posted by bench | October 19, 2011 3:15 PM

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"LSD bikers" made me chuckle. "wow, like, waves."

And I've been trying to figure out river level measurements. I think it's height above some predetermined altitude representing the normal "stream bed." Right now it's only about 3.7 feet at the Smith Ave gauge, meaning you could walk across much of the river (although there could certainly be deeper pools and, or course, the channel.)

Fun fact for Bob he probably already knows - "they" used unmanned (and hopefully unarmed) surveillance drones to monitor river flooding earlier this year.

Where is altitude measured from btw?

Posted by John P II | October 19, 2011 3:19 PM

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//I think it's height above some predetermined altitude representing the normal "stream bed."

It is, but as I understand it, it's height above a "historical" stream bed, not necessarily the one that's there now.

Posted by Bob Collins | October 19, 2011 3:21 PM

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Bob,

Wave forecasts issued by NWS/NOAA measure trough to peak, and are done as the average of the highest 1/3 of waves expected I believe. I'm trying to find a reference on their site....

So, if you have surface level altitude of the lake at 800ft. above sea level, and a forecast for 20 ft waves, you could expect that the trough of the wave would be below 800ft, and the peak above 800ft giving a total for 20ft of 'wave' but it will only be partly above the normal surface level of the water. The wave won't reach 20 ft higher than normal surface at shore because you can't have a trough at the shore, and the wave 'breaks.'

Surfing on Lake Superior is very high on my bucket-list, there are lots of pictures out there on the net, it's amazing to look at. MPR even did a piece on one of the surfers a few years back.

Posted by CHS | October 20, 2011 10:03 AM

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Just wanted to tell you Bob it was windy yesterday and yes, there were surfers out on Lake Superior =]

Posted by bench | October 21, 2011 4:40 PM

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