09-Feb-2008 Rissaga at Lyttelton 

Data kindly supplied by Lyttelton Port of Christchurch

Commentary

The waves arrived in a series of pulses. The wave period was 12 minutes, which coincides with a seiche period for the harbour. Thus, the event started the harbour oscillating at its natural frequency.

Figure 1. Long waves at Lyttelton, showing: A. long wave record; B. individual wave heights (red dots) and high tide times (green diamonds); C. individual wave periods; and D. distribution of significant wave height with time and period. Times are in NZST (UTC + 12).

How were these calculated?
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