Using experimental data from three different rogue wave supporting systems, determinism, and predictability of the underlying dynamics are evaluated with methods of nonlinear time series analysis. We included original records from the Draupner platform in the North Sea as well as time series from two optical systems in our analysis. One of the latter was measured in the infrared tail of optical fiber supercontinua, the other in the fluence profiles of multifilaments. All three data sets exhibit extreme-value statistics and exceed the significant wave height in the respective system by a factor larger than 2. Nonlinear time series analysis indicates a different degree of determinism in the systems. The optical fiber scenario is found to be driven by quantum noise whereas rogue waves emerge as a consequence of turbulence in the others. With the large number of rogue events observed in the multifilament system, we can systematically explore the predictability of such events in a turbulent system. We observe that rogue events do not necessarily appear without a warning, but are often preceded by a short phase of relative order. This surprising finding sheds some new light on the fascinating phenomenon of rogue waves.

• Received 25 February 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.213901