An engineering professor outside of Alaska has created a simulation and video game that can help people understand the scale of August 2025’s Tracy Arm landslide and tsunami in Southeast Alaska.
So when you go to the Eddy, which is the big wave tournament that runs on North shore if the waves are 40ft plus, like, once a wave starts getting above a certain size it starts changing behavior in weird ways. Like I can remember during the last Eddy when the waves were 50ft plus, they would get like, little cracks or rivers forming on their face as they continued to gain size but were also falling apart as they did so. It was truly bizarre and surreal and even more surreal to watch surfers ride the face of something the size of an apartment building.
I’ve heard they get bigger in Portugal, but I’m pretty sure it’s close to the natural limit of how big a non tsunami wave can be. And tsunami waves are very different than sea waves in their structure. Still, it’s one of the only times you can get close to wave like the one in the sim.
And I would say that Waimaea is like, maybe not as scary as Nazaré, just because it is more slabbed up and a more reliable right. Like, I coudn’t say that when Waimaea is firing its not pure chaos because cmon. 50+ft waves. But like, the way the break is and how it forms, its why people can still paddle into that wave an not have to get towed in.
And structurally its the same concept. Waimaea canyon is right behind the break and its a deeeeeep canyon. Just that we get bigger direct sets with a lot more ocean behind them than Portugal.
So when you go to the Eddy, which is the big wave tournament that runs on North shore if the waves are 40ft plus, like, once a wave starts getting above a certain size it starts changing behavior in weird ways. Like I can remember during the last Eddy when the waves were 50ft plus, they would get like, little cracks or rivers forming on their face as they continued to gain size but were also falling apart as they did so. It was truly bizarre and surreal and even more surreal to watch surfers ride the face of something the size of an apartment building.
I’ve heard they get bigger in Portugal, but I’m pretty sure it’s close to the natural limit of how big a non tsunami wave can be. And tsunami waves are very different than sea waves in their structure. Still, it’s one of the only times you can get close to wave like the one in the sim.
Yeah, the underwater of topography at Nazaré is just right to funnel all of the energy into a single point where the wave then breaks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAF7k8cSJsk&t=106s
Video of current world record holder for largest wave surfed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFEh_-tYTS0
:100:
And I would say that Waimaea is like, maybe not as scary as Nazaré, just because it is more slabbed up and a more reliable right. Like, I coudn’t say that when Waimaea is firing its not pure chaos because cmon. 50+ft waves. But like, the way the break is and how it forms, its why people can still paddle into that wave an not have to get towed in.
And structurally its the same concept. Waimaea canyon is right behind the break and its a deeeeeep canyon. Just that we get bigger direct sets with a lot more ocean behind them than Portugal.