Square waves are so dangerous you should get out of the sea immediately
Gerrard Kaonga
Featured Image Credit: Wikipedia/Michel Griffon/YouTube/John Bern
While incredibly fascinating, square waves can actually spark disaster if you aren’t careful.
For anyone who has lived by a vast body of water, you are more than aware of some of the dangers nature presents.
Footage has captured a beautiful but dangerous occurrence that can happen all over the world, when it comes to the waves in the ocean.
You know what a wave is, right? A kind of rounded shape of water that moves in a line along the water and crests before curling in on itself and crashing back into the sea.
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Yeah exactly, we all know what they are but while they are typically not square, this fascinating phenomenon shows they can be, and it can spell trouble.
Given that we usually see waves moving towards the shore, it's hard to imagine them moving at the perpendicular angles required to make a square. But this does happen, and from above it can look like there's a grid underneath the water causing the strange formation.
In reality, the waves result from the intersection of two seas when weather patterns in the region causes them to form at different angles.
You might be intrigued by the bizarre patterns - also known as cross sea or grid waves - but they are actually usually associated with strong and localized rip tides.
Square waves can reach 10 feet (three meters) in height and can appear and disappear within minutes, meaning you should evacuate the water if you ever spot them.
Cross swells are so strong that they can cause boating accidents and shipwrecks, with the bigger waves definitely proving too strong to swim out of, no matter how strong of a swimmer you may be.
According to the European Space Agency (ESA), square waves were responsible for a large percentage of ship accidents from 1995 to 1999, though Surfers Hype argues the square waves that reach the shoreline 'have much-diminished power and are not as scary or as dangerous as everyone thinks'.
However, the site adds: "Still, always be careful in the ocean and do not surf in waves if you feel you might be out of your depth."
Footage shared by YouTuber Razvan Fiat shows the waves in action while the person behind the camera looked on from the safety of the shore.
The water can be seen creating waves from two different angles before crashing back into the larger body of water.
Cross waves can be found across the globe, though the most famous place in the world for spotting them is Île de Ré - or Isle of Ré - in France.