How many times have you heard the expression ‘waves as big as houses’? Enough to dull the analogy – and often it’s an exaggeration anyway.

But just have a look at this data recorded at 0700 today from the K2 weather buoy, 150 WSW of Mizen Head in Ireland. Check out the wave heights: over 58ft.

The average height of a two-storey house is a less than a third of that.

Theoretically, some 10% of waves within this wave spectrum will be much higher. The factor generally used to calculate the height of these one-in-ten waves is 1.27, so that means they could be up to 73ft.