When I was seven, during a family vacation in Maine, we got caught out in a summer thunderstorm. We were parked beside a pond, and I remember my father telling my siblings and me not to worry as long as we stayed inside our car. That’s my first memory of a thunderstorm; in the time since, there have been many more. In a year, the continental U.S. sees an average of 25 million lightning strikes. “Don’t stand out in an open field in a thunderstorm.” “Don’t be the tallest object when lightning is around.” “Every year, people get struck on…

A few years ago, Ocean Voyager featured an article about how winds generate ocean waves. Recall that ocean waves in any given area and at any given time exist as a spectrum, meaning there are waves with many different characteristics present. To quantify the wave spectrum, a parameter called “significant wave height” (SWH) is used, and all sea state analyses and forecasts make use of this parameter. By definition, there will always be some waves higher than SWH. It is generally accepted that the highest waves seen within a wave spectrum will be about twice the SWH, and these larger…