Destructive waves returning to El Salvador


The weekend of May 2-3 saw tall and fast waves crashing into the Salvadoran coast.   The waves caused considerable damage to the pier at the city of La Libertad, and to many of the small cafes and other establishments along the country's Pacific beaches.   Similar conditions are now expected to return on Wednesday, May 13.

The waves battered coastal areas up and down the Pacific coasts of the Americas from Mexico to Chile.   As one site reported, the swells which crashed against the shores had been generated by storms in the middle of the Pacific:
The storms originated near the International Date Line and included sustained winds of 50-60 knots (93-111km/h), creating a massive swell that surprised residents in coastal regions fringing the eastern Pacific....  
“It shows huge waves can be generated quite some distance away,” said Alex Zadnik, a meteorologist with Weatherzone, who has surfed at the Mexican beach. “The weather conditions wouldn’t have given the locals a clue” of what was coming, he said.
You can see a photogallery of the damage from the wave action on May 2-3 in El Salvador from ContraPunto at this link.

This video presents in dramatic fashion the wave action and some of its damage in and around La Libertad:


The country's civil protection authorities have issued an orange alert for coastal areas on Wednesday in advance of high wave action expected to return again.    Wednesdays waves are expected to be between 1.5 and 2.2 meters high and travel at 60 kilometers per hour. (Normal speed is 35 km/h).   The waves on May 2-3 had reached 2.7 meters high and a speed of 70 km/h.

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