‘Historic’ waves as high as 20 feet tall send wedding guests in Hawaii running for cover
By Jane Nam
Massive waves sent wedding guests running for cover as water aggressively knocked over decor and stands in Hawaii over the weekend.
As seen in a video, waves — some reported to be over 20 feet high — crashed a wedding at Hulihe’e Palace in Kailua-Kona, wiping out tables and a bar but miraculously leaving the food and wedding cake unharmed.
“It definitely did not stop the party,” assured the groom in a clip taken after. “We definitely kept going and if anything it just made everybody closer.”
Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources claimed that the swells were “the highest south shore surf in more than 25 years.”
In a separate video, waves can be seen crashing over two-story buildings, soaking everyone in its path.
“It’s flooding everywhere,” says the person filming.
Chris Brenchley, the meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Honolulu reported that some waves reached “20 feet, 20 feet-plus even…getting on the level of historic.”
Lifeguards and rescue crews conducted at least 1,960 rescues on the island of O’ahu alone over the weekend.
Unlike previous reports, Hurricane Darby was not the major cause of the waves.
Instead, Brenchley explained that a warming planet was to blame.
“The most direct type of impact that we can use with climate change is the sea level rise. Any time you add just even small amounts of water, you raise that sea level just a bit.”
Earlier this year, a study from Japan’s University of Tsukuba warned that East Asia could be flooded by “atmospheric rivers” that would bring an “unprecedented extreme rainfall” if climate change persisted.
Rising sea levels have also been an increasingly big issue in countries like China with a large coastal region, where waters had risen 82 millimeters higher on average from 1993 to 2011.
Featured Image via Guardian News
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