Buoy Graph From Fatal Mediterranean Waves
The BBC says that two people were killed when 26-foot waves hit a cruise ship near Marseilles France. Our news story for the event says "A storm bringing rain showers was moving through the area at the time." The satellite image above shows a gathering low pressure system with the location of the event at the blue "x" and a Meteo France buoy shown at the yellow "x."
Our article suggests that the waves may have been caused by rapid increase due to a shallow sea floor, but I would say only if they were considerably above the 26 feet reported. There are only two publicly available buoys in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of them happens to be near where this event took place. It reported waves building to 20 feet, in fact nearly 21 feet before they fell off last night. As I have explained before, "rogue waves" are usually 2-3x the buoy-reported heights so it's unlikely we're talking about that here.
