Contrary to the usual fundamental soliton that can maintain its profile unchanged during propagation, the Peregrine soliton presents a double spatio-temporal localization. Therefore, starting from a weak oscillation on a continuous background, the Peregrine soliton develops undergoing a progressive increase of its amplitude and a narrowing of its temporal duration. At the point of maximum compression, the amplitude is three times the level of the continuous background (and if one considers the intensity as it is relevant in optics, there is a factor 9 between the peak intensity and the surrounding background). After this point of maximal compression, the wave's amplitude decreases and its width increases.
These features of the Peregrine soliton are fully consistent with the quantitative criteria usually used in order to qualify a wave as a rogue wave. Therefore, the Peregrine soliton is an attractive hypothesis to explain the formation of those waves which have a high amplitude and may appear from nowhere and disappear without a trace.