Weather-associated meteotsunami roughs up Geneva State Park marina

An April 14 rouge meteorological event called a “meteotsunami” sent a wall of water estimated at 10 to 12 feet high crashing into the Lake Erie shoreline from Madison Township in Lake County and east to Conneaut along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.

Roughed up a bit in the event was the 400-boat slip marina at the 698-acre Geneva State Park in Ashtabula County. However, the marina had yet to tether any vessel to its assigned berth so no boats were damaged.

Meteotsunamis “are driven by air-pressure disturbances often associated with fast-moving weather events, such as severe thunderstorms, squalls, and other storm fronts,” says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Ocean Service.

“The storm generates a wave that moves towards the shore, and is amplified by a shallow continental shelf and inlet, bay, or other coastal feature,” NOAA says. “They occur in many places around the world, including the Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Coast, and the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas.”

It is believed that another such weather-associated event struck Cleveland Metroparks’ Wildwood Park in Cleveland last October, striking the party fishing boat “Linda Mae,” and partially submerging the vessel.

For the popular Geneva State Park marina, the event was even recorded on the facility’s security camera system.

All of the Geneva State Park marina’s docks are floating types that ride up and down on metal pilings. When the meteotsunami’s impact struck the marina’s protected interior harbor, the wave action caused any number of the floating docks to ride on top of the water’s crest with several of the structures then slipping off their piling supports.

“And some of the floats that are attached to the docks became loose and we had to remount them first before we could let the docks back down,” said Bob Munson, the marina’s dock master.

Munson said the event also caused a swell of debris to wash up and over the cement sidewalk that edges much of the marina harbor’s dock area perimeter.

It took marina personnel about three days to get the facility’s affairs back in order and cleaned up, Munson also said.

This same situation of debris piling up was seen all along the Lake Erie shoreline from Madison Township to Conneaut with reports of two-ton concrete breakwater devices easily being relocated several feet away by the force of the wave action, the National Weather Service’s Cleveland office saying as well.

The marina’s security camera system did record the event at around 7:17 p.m. when no one was around. This filming provided a visual testimony that saw the water rise for about 10 minutes, Munson said.

“It was pretty impressive footage,” Munson said, adding that he had heard stories regarding a similar event about 20 years ago.

“But I wasn’t around back then,” he said.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net