{"id":184078,"date":"2022-07-19T10:32:18","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T02:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=184078"},"modified":"2022-07-19T10:32:18","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T02:32:18","slug":"us-hawaii-towering-waves-crash-into-homes-weddings-during-south-swell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=184078","title":{"rendered":"US: Hawaii towering waves crash into homes, weddings during south swell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"People<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People walk in front of the high surf near Kapahulu Groin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HONOLULU, July 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Towering waves on Hawaii’s south shores crashed into homes and businesses, spilled across highways and upended weddings over the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The large waves – some more than 6m high – came from a combination of a southern swell that peaked on Saturday evening, unusually high tides and rising sea levels from climate change, the United States National Weather Service said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A wedding on Saturday evening in Kailua-Kona was interrupted when a few particularly large waves swamped the event, sending tables and chairs crashing toward guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sara Ackerman, an author who grew up in Hawaii and attended the wedding, filmed the waves as they barrelled ashore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt just was huge,\u201d she said. \u201dI was filming it and then it just came over the wall and just completely annihilated all the tables and chairs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said that it happened about five minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said that they went ahead with the ceremony and cleaned up the mess after the newlyweds exchanged vows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Brenchley, the meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Honolulu, called the swell historic: \u201cIt\u2019s the largest it\u2019s been in several decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that the waves were a product of \u201can interesting convergence of events.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remnants of Tropical Cyclone Darby passed south of Hawaii but had no impact on the surf, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brenchley said the swell was produced in the South Pacific, where it is currently the winter season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey had a particularly strong winter storm where the the winds were focused directly towards places like Samoa and then further on to the north into Hawaii,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While singular events like this are hard to pin directly to climate change, Brenchley said that the warming planet is playing a role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The weekend waves had faces in excess of 6m high, Brenchley said. Most large swells that come from the south are typically no bigger than about 3m, which would trigger a high surf advisory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawaii\u2019s north shores, where professional surfers often compete, usually get much larger waves. The predominant swell hits the north shores in the winter and the south shores in the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lifeguards across the state had a busy weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They conducted at least 1,960 rescues on the island of Oahu alone on Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials reported one serious injury when a surfer suffered a laceration to the back of his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOther than that, fortunately, it was a very safe weekend,\u201d said Honolulu Emergency Management Services Department spokesperson Shayne Enright. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People walk in front of the high surf near Kapahulu Groin HONOLULU, July 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Towering waves on Hawaii’s south shores crashed into homes and businesses, spilled across highways and upended weddings over the weekend. The large waves – some more than 6m high – came from a combination of a southern swell that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":184080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184078"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184081,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184078\/revisions\/184081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/184080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}