Measurements of current fluctuations due to internal waves obtained from two fixed point moorings on the Australian North West Shelf have been analyzed with the aim of calculating the probability of short-scale, large-amplitude internal waves exceeding particular values. Such waves are generated as a result of breaking or hydrodynamical instability of the semidiurnal internal tide. The statistical stationarity of each record has been checked, and it is shown that the records can be used for the calculation of the frequency by which currents exceed a particular value for wave heights (double amplitudes) of less than 60 cm s-1. The theoretical forms for exceedance frequency from the theory of extreme statistics have been checked, and it is shown that for one location a power asymptotic provides a slightly better descriptor of the statistics than an exponential asymptotic and for the other location an exponential asymptotic is found to provide the better fit. The exceedance frequency for internal waves near the Australian North West Shelf is found to be less than 1.3 waves per hour. The exceedance probability for each location has been calculated using Poisson statistics. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1995