By Brandon Chew
It was atmospheric pressure waves that produced 6-foot water waves in Lake Michigan on April 13, 2018, damaging docks and cottages and submerging breakwalls in Ludington.
The event is the first documented meteotsunami in the Great Lakes and provides an opportunity for scientists to better understand and forecast these events, according to a study recently published in the print version of the journal Natural Hazards.
Meteotsunami is short for a meteorological tsunami. While most tsunamis are caused by seismic activity, meteotsunamis are caused by rapid changes in air pressure, usually as the result of severe thunderstorms.
“Meteotsunamis happen in every Great Lake and they can happen (roughly) 100 times per year,” said Eric Anderson, the study’s lead author and a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.