This happened at Woods Hole years ago. The water quietly rose up into the
parking lots around the oceanographic institution to about the level of the
car door handles and went back down. No earthquake, just a resonance of the
wind and tide sloshing the water between the islands and the mainland in
such a way that a wave built up. Nice windfall for AAA and the local
garages.

--

Roger Long



"WaIIy" wrote in message
...



Article Publication Date: 12/30/2004
Lake Erie's death waves

They're not as destructive as a tsunami, but a Lake Erie seiche can kill

CARL E. FEATHER / Feather Multimedia
A WALL of water called a seiche can develop on Lake Erie in times of
uneven atmospheric pressure over the water or when high winds pile up
water at one of the lake then subside, creating a sloshing effect in the
shallow basin. One such wave took the lives of seven people May 31,
1942.

By CARL E. FEATHER

Lifestyle Editor

Considering that a substantial body of water is just to our north, and
that earthquakes periodically occur under the lake, the possibility of a
horrific tidal wave like that in the Indian Ocean earlier this week may
come to the mind of shoreline residents.

Relax.

"I'd say that would be very unlikely," says Tom Berg, chief of the Ohio
Geological Survey. Berg says the earthquakes that occur under Lake Erie
are very mild, especially compared to the 8.9-magnitude quake that
triggered the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The amount of energy released
by the quakes under Lake Erie is minuscule compared to the Indian Ocean
quake.

There were two Lake Erie earthquakes in 2003. One in the early morning
hours of Feb. 10 was detected about 2 miles offshore from North
Kingsville. It was a 2.4 magnitude. A 3.5-magnitude quake off
Painesville on June 30, 2003, was widely felt in Lake, Ashtabula and
Geauga counties. But no tidal waves were produced from either quake,
says Berg.

"I don't recall any changes in the lake level ... from the small seismic
activity in our part of the world," Berg said. "(The activity in Lake
Erie) is pretty deep. I'm not sure there would be much energy to cause a
ripple in Lake Erie."

Constant J. Livchak, Geology Program supervisor with the Ohio Department
of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey/Lake Erie Geology
Group, says there's no active faults under the lake that could cause the
kind of displacement that triggered the tsunami in the Indian Ocean
Sunday. Berg says the earthquakes that occur under the lake do so in the
Cambrian layer of rock and occur along healed sutures as a result of
"minor adjustments to regional stress within the crust."

Even if a strong earthquake occurred under the lake, Lake Erie is too
shallow to create the kind of tidal waves that develop in a deep ocean,
say the experts.

Ironically, the lake's shallow waters do create the right environment
for another kind of natural disaster, an atmospherically induced wave
known as a seiche. Lake Erie, thanks to being a long, shallow lake, is
the most likely of the five Great Lakes to produce one of these waves.

According to an article written by Keith C. Heidorn, "The Weather
Doctor," for The Weather Doctor Almanac 2004 Web site, a seiche occurs
when atmospheric disturbances pass over the lake. The wind pushes the
water of the lake to one side of the basin, causing a rise in the level.
When the wind stops blowing, the water sloshes back toward the other
side of the lake.

"It recoils to the other end, just like a kid playing in a bath tub,"
Berg says. The water hits the wall of the tub, then sloshes back and
forth.

These waves are typically so small we normally don't notice them in Lake
Erie, they get lost in the general wave action. But in severe
conditions, variations of up to 16 feet have been observed between
opposing lake shores, states the Web site.

Cleveland television weather guru Dick Goddard, in his 1998 "Weather
Guide and Almanac" (Gray & Company), states that a seiche can also
result from unequal air pressure over the surface of the water.

Although the destruction doesn't begin to approach that of a tsunami,
seiches can and have claimed lives on the Great Lakes. On June 26, 1954,
a seiche 8 feet high and 25 miles wide slammed into Chicago's lakefront.
Eight people, most of whom were swept into the water and drowned while
fishing, died. A similar incident claimed at least 10 lives July 4,
1929, on Lake Michigan's eastern shore.

More recently, a Lake Superior seiche on July 13, 1995, about 3 feet
tall, left boats hanging on their mooring lines.

On Lake Erie, there have been seiche incidents in 1882, 1929, 1933 and
1947. The deadliest Lake Erie seiche hit close to home and claimed seven
lives in the early morning hours of May 31, 1942.

Goddard notes that lightning had laced the skies over Lake Erie
throughout the weekend, and the lake was running choppy under a
freshening south wind.

Around 2 a.m., Paul Day, an employee of the Industrial Rayon Plant at
Fairport Harbor, noticed a strange change in the wind direction as he
worked outside the power plant. Smoke from the plant, which had been
blowing toward the lake, suddenly started to trail south. Within three
minutes, a cold wind rose from the north.

At a Geneva-on-the-Lake pier, Leonard Gaetano of Ashtabula welcomed five
passengers from Pittsburgh onto his new speedboat and headed toward
Ashtabula Harbor with them. Fifteen feet from the pier, Joe Spagnola of
Ashtabula looked toward the lake horizon and saw a wall of water. He
shouted out to Gaetano, who began to turn around the 19-foot boat and
head toward shore. But there wasn't time.

The wave flung the boat 200 feet onto shore. Passengers said it felt as
if a giant hand had lifted the boat from the lake and dropped it onto
the sand.

At Bay Village, the wave swept George H. Forrler, his daughter Evelyn,
and Walter and Esther Allen off the pier where they'd been fishing and
into the churning water. Walter Allen rescued Evelyn Forrler, but was
unable to save his wife or George Forrler. Esther Allen's watch stopped
at 2:10 a.m.

A 4-foot surge of water was noted at the Coast Guard station on the
mouth of the Cuyahoga River about the same time. The elevated level
remained so for about 30 minutes before subsiding.

At Perry, seven fishermen who had been fishing from a log were dislodged
by a blast of wind followed by the wave. They survived to tell of being
tossed into a ravine, along with the log, by a wave that engulfed a bank
20 feet tall. Goddard's book notes that they were carried some 150 feet
inland; one of them suffered a broken leg.

Thirty-five fishermen who had been fishing on the breakwater at Walnut
Beach were swept off the wall and into the lake. There were no
fatalities.

Merrill F. Riley of Cleveland was not as fortunate. He and his
brother-in-law, John Austin of Wooster, had rented a boat from
Day's-on-the-Lake at Madison. The small outboard-motor boat was flipped
by the first wave, tossing the men into a lake strewed with debris.
While Austin was rescued, the second wave claimed Riley's life.

Also killed by the wave when it hit Madison were Merle E. Diehl of
Cortland and Esther and Orlo Lenney, who were newlyweds.

Madison-on-the-Lake reportedly received the brunt of the wave, which
stretched from Bay Village to Conneaut. Height of the first wave was
reported at 4 to 20 feet; the second surge, which hit 15 minutes later,
was 6 to 8 feet tall. Goddard's book states that the wave hit the shore
at 80 miles per hour and was up to 25 feet in height.

No seismic activity was reported that night, leading experts to believe
that the waves were induced by a sudden change in atmospheric pressure
over the lake.

Weather experts say a seiche can occur on the lake without warning, so
boaters and shore users need to listen to National Weather Service
forecasts for warnings of conditions favorable to seiche development.

http://www.starbeacon.com/index.asp?...NID=5&AID=6340