In response to many questions about gravity waves and their effects on weather, I am putting together some blog posts to explain them. This one is really more just interesting observations, and the next part will go into atmospheric gravity waves. For part 1, click here.
Jason Simpson and I headed down to the Warrior River the other day, and decided to go gravity wave chasing. A barge was going by, the M/V Charles Haun of the Parker Towing Company, with something like 4,000 horsepower, pushing 6 empty barges. So, something that big, moving about 8 mph, makes some large waves. So we jumped in the boat and followed.
These are surface gravity waves on the water, whose speed is determined by the depth of the water and the wavelength of the waves. Interestingly, the waves on the left side of the barge (deeper water, 30 ft.) were moving more slowly (theoretical speed about 6 mph, wavelength about 25 feet), trailing behing the barge and allowing us to observe and eventually ride in between them. In the shallower water to the right, the waves were moving faster and not really trailing the barge.
Anyway, the waves looked about 2.5 feet high, so in my small Manatee boat, they were a little intimidating. We matched their speed closely and observed them off to the side for a while, then got in the wave zone. Cool stuff. One of them was big enough when it caught us to cause the engine to make a weird noise, I guess the propeller or water pump intake was too close to the surface of the water! I did point out where the life jackets were at that point.
Some pictures of us with the waves, the barge, and Jason’s nice largemouth bass (some of us didn’t catch any big fish.)
