In November 2020, an extraordinary natural event unfolded off the coast of British Columbia—a rogue wave that lifted a buoy a staggering 17.6 meters (58 feet) high, the height of a four-story building. It wasn’t until February 2022 that scientists confirmed this freak wave, marking it as the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded, at least in terms of its relative size compared to the surrounding sea. This wave, which emerged near Ucluelet on Vancouver Island, has been described as a once-in-1,300-years phenomenon. Without the data recorded by the buoy, we may have never known such a rare and powerful force of nature had occurred.
Rogue waves have long been the stuff of maritime legend, dismissed by “experts” as myths until hard evidence finally came in 1995. That year, the Draupner wave—a 25.6-meter (85-foot) behemoth—crashed into an oil-drilling platform off the coast of Norway. This event changed the way scientists viewed ocean waves, as it defied all prior models and theories. Since then, several rogue waves have been documented, including in places as surprising as lakes. But the Ucluelet wave stood out, not necessarily because of its height, but because of how drastically it dwarfed the surrounding waves.
What makes the Ucluelet the most extreme is that it was captured by instruments and recorded. The Draupner is assumed to be larger but was not “officially” recorded by scientific instruments.
Below is security camera footage that captured the Draupner:
By definition, a rogue wave is one that towers more than twice the height of its surrounding peers. For comparison, the Draupner wave was just over double the height of the 12-meter waves around it. In contrast, the Ucluelet wave was nearly three times the size of the waves it surged from, making it proportionally the most extreme rogue wave on record. Johannes Gemmrich, a physicist from the University of Victoria, noted in 2022 that this event was truly unparalleled in terms of its proportional magnitude.
Today, scientists are still working to understand how rogue waves form, as their unpredictability poses significant dangers to marine operations, coastal communities, and even beachgoers. Real-time measurements and complex modeling are helping researchers get closer to being able to forecast these sudden, towering walls of water. The buoy that detected the Ucluelet wave is one of many deployed by MarineLabs, a research institute dedicated to studying ocean hazards. These buoys are part of an ongoing effort to increase our knowledge of the world’s coastlines and enhance marine safety.
While rogue waves like the Ucluelet and Draupner waves didn’t result in any deaths or serious damage, not all have been so harmless. Some ships that mysteriously disappeared in the 1970s are now believed to have been sunk by rogue waves, their wreckage bearing the signature of these terrifying forces. The unpredictability and raw power of rogue waves can have devastating consequences for ships, oil rigs, and even wind farms.