understanding top output

for some reason for the last hour or so my servers load has been fluctuating between under .10 and up to 7 and higher.

during these high loads, top doesnt show any processes eating up much ram, but:

Cpu(s): 6.0% us, 2.3% sy, 0.3% ni, 87.1% id, 3.6% wa, 0.7% hi, 0.0% si

in that, the wa will be near 90%

what the heck does "wa" stand for in top? Top's man page is near worthless, and google doesn't return much.


Thanks

 

 

 

 

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