the.com/surge

a quiet number that becomes a wave the second nobody's bracing for it

means A sudden powerful increase or forward rush — of water, electricity, crowds, emotion, or demand.

from From Latin surgere, 'to rise,' a tidy contraction of sub- ('up from below') and regere ('to lead, direct') — the same regere that gives us 'rule' and 'direct.' It reached English through Old French sourdre and the Latin verb surgere, first describing the heave and swell of the sea before it spread to anything that rises fast and hard. The root literally pictures something being led upward from underneath, which is exactly what a wave does to a calm surface.

power grid
A surge can fry electronics in microseconds
storm word
Storm surge drowns more people than wind
adrenaline
Your body's surge can lift a car off someone
tactic
The 2007 Iraq troop surge added 30,000 soldiers
physics
Power surges spike voltage far above normal levels
for instance

august 2023 monkeypox surge — global cases exceeded 40,000 in summer 2023 before declining

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