Few inanimate systems have the personality of an interesting weather event. Some are attractive but we are most concerned with the angry ones.

Mt Ranier with a school of lenticulars.

Its hard to beat Alaska for big angry weather. These North Pacific lows plow across the Aleutians leaving a wake of treeless islands and scared mariners. It’s a place where the typical low pressure system carries the weather chart notation “Hurricane Force”. (Check out the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center for more groovy model output.)

I once sailed with a skipper named Oly. The crew renamed him “Oly Shit” because that’s what he said every time he looked at the eastern Aleutians weather fax. And he was an Icelander in his mid 50’s who had seen a storm or three.

In a fast-changing place like the Aleutians a big bowl shaped cloud hanging over the wheelhouse can only be bad but it’s hard to guess how bad.

Its usually bad enough that you would rather be at the dock.

I once became obsessed with wave height and steepness. With no access to modeling software (Orcaflex rocks!) I resorted to sketches. Above is a Caliber 40. Below is a Caliber 40 in a range of sea states.

Second from the bottom is one badass wave that was recorded at the Ekofisk oil platform in the North Sea in 1998. It was an unusually steep 12 meter wave that set the baseline design wave for some offshore structures.

The key here is steepness. When you get to a place where a 12 meter wave has the steepness of the Ekofisk wave, things become interesting. Of course the sketches only show one wave in the spectrum of waves present. A 12 meter wave could have 2 meter breaking waves racing across it like fleas on a dog.

This crab boat off Dutch Harbor was in about a 6 ft swell but it was a long period wave. They rolled quite bit (see scuppers draining?) but it wasn’t a bad place to be.