What happens to marine animals and other sealife during a hurricane?
A hurricane or any strong storm has, of course, an effect on marine life. But there are a few things to remember. The wind has no effect on what is in the water. However, waves do. But it takes i.e. 8 hours of constant wind at Beaufort force 7 to build waves of 4 meters. Because of that e.g. a thunderstorm with strong gusts will never have the time to lift waves of any critical size. Waves seem to move in the direction of the wind but they don’t. If you were to put a rubber duck on a train of waves and measure its motion relative to the seabed, you’d see that it moves in a circle, up and down but also fore and aft. That circular motion is felt quite deep in the ocean. Many years ago, I was diving in a mini-submarine off the coast of The Netherlands. The waves were less than two meters but at 35 meters down, we weren’t able to sit on the ground, the motion of the waves were still felt at that depth (the negative buoyancy of the sub was perhaps 50 kg but the mass was 3.5 tons!) We expect
