SWH of 20 meters, measured by an aircraft:
Underscoring the significance these conditions, the World Meteorological Organization’s current record for significant wave height measured by a buoy stands at 19 meters (62.3 feet), recorded in 2013 between Iceland and the United Kingdom
It’s been rough more often than usual throughout the Fall.
I’m glad to be taking the winter off.
I think we’re seeing invalid precision here - wave heights of 19 or 20 meters implies a resolution of 1 meter ( which seems reasonable for things like waves). But wave heights of “65.77 feet” to “63.2 feet “ implies resolution of either tenths or hundredths of a foot - unlikely in my opinion.
We need the media to stop doing metric-imperial conversion in such a meaningless way. Since it seems likely the original measurements here are in meters, that is what should be headlined, with parenthetical feet for the troglodytes 
At any rate, I’m glad I’m not out there but rather here in sunny Florida getting new knees…
Happy New Year with your knees!
Even here in Europe, about 60 ft American waves become ‘about 18.29 meters’ waves
That caught my eye as well. The media typically uses a style guide for this. That post was from NWS OPC who you’d think would avoid that type of error.
This is an earlier post from NWS OPC on the same topic:
Yes, the first note is very reasonable - without the spurious conversion gibberish.
These days, it seems like “journalists” are the ones who are technologically illiterate. Us readers need to do detective work to figure out the reality behind the mush they write.
