The weather in Croatia and along the Adriatic can be a little bit, well, all over the place. The calm, deep blue sea is a distant memory on some days as Mother Nature whips up the waves in a way many tourists who are dedicated to visiting only during the summer months have never seen or imagined possible in Croatia.
We recently reported on the highest waves being recorded since 2004 near Palagruža, Croatia’s most remote lighthouse island. We also touched on the story of two surfers who must have had someone watching over them as they somehow managed to survive the wild Adriatic near Umag in Istria, one of them, a Slovenian national, miraculously surviving 24 hours at sea and arriving to call for help at a cafe in Trieste, Italy.
It seems the records just keep being broken by the waves as yet more are recorded during this typically unstable period for the weather in Croatia, the highest wave having been recorded near Sveti Andrija near Dubrovnik.
As Morski writes on the 1st of November, 2018, the Croatian Hydrographic Institute has recorded yet more record waves at their stations in Rovinj, Split, Ploče, and Dubrovnik. The highest, as mentioned, was recorded near the islet of Sv. Andrija, with a peak height of 9.03 metres. While it might appear out of the ordinary at first, such a huge wave being measured near this islet is not that unusual of a phenomenon for the extreme south of Dalmatia. Back in 1988, a wave actually covered the height of the crane that was once place there, once again at an impressive height of eleven metres.
The nine-metre elevated concrete bridges typical of such lighthouse islets were met with waves of exactly that height on several occasions. In one case, according to the testimony of one lighthouse keeper, a boat was lifted up by the sea before being totally destroyed.
These waves are otherwise the highest waves of the last decade, with the Croatian Hydrographic Institute reporting that the maximum wave height measured in Rovinj was eight metres, Split measured a wave of over 3 metres in height, and the station in Dubrovnik (near the islet of Sveti Andrija), the maximum recorded wave height was 9.03 metres.
The aforementioned institute stated that all of this collected and processed data will contribute to increasing the overall degree of safety of navigation in these areas, as well as lead to the creation of updated safety recommendations. This information provides the preconditions for the safe transport of people and goods to the Croatian part of the Adriatic, the management of the sea and underwater resources, and to the defense and the preservation of the environment.
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