Rogue waves — enormous, sudden walls of water — are real and not merely sailors' tales. A landmark example is the 84‑ft Draupner Wave on Jan 1, 1995. A new study in Scientific Reports finds that overlapping swells can align and stack, producing a measurable precursor pattern that may allow short‑term forecasting. While prediction could improve safety, deliberately surfing such waves would remain extremely dangerous.
80‑Foot Rogue Waves Could Be Predicted — But Would Anyone Dare to Surf One?
Rogue waves — enormous, sudden walls of water — are real and not merely sailors' tales. A landmark example is the 84‑ft Draupner Wave on Jan 1, 1995. A new study in Scientific Reports finds that overlapping swells can align and stack, producing a measurable precursor pattern that may allow short‑term forecasting. While prediction could improve safety, deliberately surfing such waves would remain extremely dangerous.
08:43 AM, 11/18/2025Science
Rogue Waves: Predictable Phenomenon, Perilous Prospect
Gigantic, seemingly spontaneous walls of water — the stuff of maritime legend — are real. The most famous early example is the 84‑foot Draupner Wave that struck an offshore platform in the North Sea on January 1, 1995. Decades of observations and new analyses are now giving scientists fresh insight into how these freak swells form and whether short‑term forecasting might be possible.
How rogue waves form
A new study in Scientific Reports examined how overlapping swells interact. When wave trains arrive from different directions and phases, their crests can sharpen and align. In some configurations those sharpened crests can stack, producing a single, towering wall of water. The study identifies a measurable precursor pattern — a sequence of wave interactions that tends to occur before this stacking — which could be detectable by instruments.
“Imagine a stadium crowd funneling down a long, narrow corridor,” researcher Francisco Fedele told Scientific American. “People at the back push forward and pile up; that piling is like a rogue wave in a narrow tank. But when the crowd can spill into a wide field, they spread out and no crush forms. The open ocean behaves differently, so tank experiments don’t always capture sea conditions.”
Forecasting vs. folklore
Crucially, the study does not claim perfect long‑range prediction. Instead, it points to a detectable fingerprint that may allow short‑term forecasting or probabilistic warnings: identifying when overlapping swells are likely to stack into an extreme crest. If validated and operationalized, such forecasts could improve safety for shipping, offshore platforms and coastal communities by providing early alerts for extreme, localized swells.
Could rogue waves be surfed?
If rogue waves can be forecast with enough lead time and spatial accuracy, the fantasy of deliberately riding one moves slightly closer to reality — but that does not make it sensible. Rogue waves are unstable, massively powerful, and often accompanied by unpredictable currents and debris. Attempting to surf a forecasted rogue wave would pose extreme risk to life and equipment and would likely remain a pursuit for a tiny handful of highly specialized, well‑supported teams, if it happens at all.
For now, the most immediate benefit of this research is improved hazard awareness rather than sport. Ongoing field observations, better instrumentation and integration of these precursor patterns into operational wave models will determine whether reliable short‑term forecasts are achievable.
Sources: Scientific Reports (study), Scientific American (interview with Francisco Fedele), reporting by Surfer. Video reference: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Da1t-v6PQtI