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An eight-story monster wave that crashed down in the Southern Ocean off the coast of New Zealand has set a record. It's the largest known wave to ever hit the Southern Hemisphere, according to New Zealand scientists.
Nobody actually saw the 78-foot-tall (23.8 meters) wave crash down, but a buoy moored by New Zealand's Campbell Island managed to log the amazing wonder on May 8, according to MetOcean Solutions, a subsidiary of the Meteorological Service of New Zealand.
The colossal wave eclipsed its record-breaking predecessor by nearly 6 feet (1.77 m). That wave - a 72.2-foot (22.03 m) swell recorded by an Australian buoy, reared up just south of Tasmania in 2012, MetOcean Solutions said.
"This [new wave] is a very exciting event and to our knowledge it is [the] largest wave ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere," Tom Durrant, a senior oceanographer with MetOcean Solutions,
said in a statement. "This is a very important storm to capture, and it will add greatly to our understanding of the wave physics under extreme conditions in the Southern Ocean."
In this case, a deep, low-pressure system and high winds exceeding 74 mph (65 knots or 120 km/h) helped to create the perfect conditions for the enormous wave. "What is interesting about [Tuesday's] event is the storm speed appears to match the wave speed, allowing wave heights to grow dramatically as the system tracks eastward," Durrant said.
Comment: Sand/dust storms have also hit other countries in the Middle East this month such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai and UAE.
In north India recently powerful 'freak' dust storms killed over 125 people, the highest death toll in decades.