re: Hurricane Irma - Spinning Down

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Hurricane Ivan, which struck U.S. shores September 15, 2004, kicked up the tallest, most extreme waves ever measured, scientists announced today.

The tallest measured wave was 91 feet (28 meters). The researchers believe they likely missed even larger waves because their sensors shut down before the most powerful region of the storm passed over them.

"If we had been fortunate enough to sample the waves when peak winds were overhead, we'd expect to have seen waves in excess of 130 feet [40 meters] from crest to trough," team member William Teague said.

At its peak intensity, the hurricane was a Category Five storm—the most powerful—with sustained winds of 161 miles an hour (259 kilometers an hour).

Hurricane Ivan tore a deadly path across the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico in 2004. It struck the Gulf Coast on September 15 with 130 mile an hour (209 kilometer an hour) winds and was directly responsible for 92 deaths. But the extreme waves disintegrated in the choppy waters of the Gulf of Mexico, never making landfall.

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