July 31, 1966 Tsunami: SW Great Britain, United Kingdom

Reference #14268:

Tsunami origin probably a squall line in the Bristol Channel

According to an eyewitness account, “On the beach at Westward Ho! in North Devon in August 1966, as far as I can now ascertain the date[ ,] …I was in the water with my small surf board, “catching” waves to bring me into shore. Suddenly, with my back to the sea[,]…I found [that] the water had dropped from waist level to around my ankles. I turned to look out to sea and saw a huge wave coming in…When it arrived, I had the surf board ripped from my hands, and I was bowled over and over in the foaming water. The wave ran up the beach, soaking everyone who had not seen it coming, and stealing all possessions…on the stones there…I remember thinking I would surely drown in this giant wave, but found myself still alive, but pretty battered…I remember looking over my shoulder when the wave was very close, and realising, with horror, that it was enormous. I am 5 feet 4 inches [1.63 meters] tall, and I would estimate the wave to have been something in the region of eight to ten feet [2.4-3.05 meters] in height., . . If it had been hitting the coast of Devon in any other place than Westward Ho!, then the results could have been quite devastating. The huge stones and sea defences behind probably dissipated the force of the vast amount of water.”

Although one cannot be certain, an examination of weather events in the outer Bristol Channel region around August 1966 reveals a candidate for the event that took place during the afternoon and early evening of 31 July. The front page of the I August Times ran the headline ‘‘40 Yachts Hit by Freak Squall” and describes how a damaging squall with wind speeds up to 45 meters per second struck the Pembrokeshire coastline across the Bristol Channel from Westward Ho! Rescue services searched for hours for people missing as yachts were blown away from their moorings and in some instances were washed out to sea and/or overturned; eventually everyone was accounted for. If this link between the Pembrokeshire squall and the Westward Ho! wave is correct, this event constitutes a second instance in which the passage of a frontal squall in southern Britain generated a meteo-tsunami. Indeed, this wave appears to have been similar to one that hit Kent and Sussex in July 1929, where the wave unexpectedly struck coasts in areas where the meteorological effects heavy rain and strong winds-were absent.

An alternative, or contributory, factor in this event may have been the position of Hurricane Dorothy in the mid-North Atlantic on 30 and 31 July (Erickson 1967; Sugg 1967), which may have generated far-traveling, long-period waves. We believe that this is unlikely, however, given the occurrence of a local squall, but nevertheless possible