Rogue waves in oceanic turbulence

A stochastic model of wave groups is presented to explain the occurrence of exceptionally large waves, usually referred to as rogue waves. The model leads to the description of the non-Gaussian statistics of large waves in oceanic turbulence and to a new asymptotic distribution of their crest heights in a form that generalizes the Tayfun model. The new model explains the unusually large crests observed in flume experiments of narrow-band waves. However, comparisons with realistic oceanic measurements gathered in the North Sea during an intense storm indicate that the generalized model agrees with the original Tayfun distribution.