Chilean earthquake and Tsunami warning
Bloody hell.. there are some big measurements being recorded off the coast right now too.
And this data is from a tsunami station in about 5,000m of water, located approx 400m SW of Arica (where the Rip Curl Pro Chile was held in 2007). Just shows how long these events persist after the initial swell arrives.
This is the current ETA of the tusnami across the South American west coast. It's the middle of the night there right now, so it'll be hard to evaluate until morning (about 9 hours away).
Here are some informative graphics which show the ETA across the Pacific basin (thanks to Alex at Weatherzone for the heads up!).
I don't know.. tsunamis are well outside the area of my expertise. But the initial data suggests there is a pretty significant event in the water.
Why the fingers extending out in that tsunami propogation plot Ben? Particularly leading to NZ? Are these due to bathymetry also?
Yeah Don, it would be the Bathymetry focussing or not hindering the tsunamis energy as it crosses the Pacific.
Also notice the travel time doesn't really see any effects from the bathy as it's the shallow water wave equation, and with the wavelength of minutes, the entire ocean basin is 'shallow' and you only see refraction effects around large land masses/islands.
The PTWC has cancelled the Tsunami Warnings and Watches for all South/Central American regions except Chile and Peru.
The PTWC has now issued a 'Tsunami Advisory' for Hawaii.
BASED ON ALL AVAILABLE DATA A MAJOR TSUNAMI IS NOT EXPECTED TO STRIKE THE STATE OF HAWAII. HOWEVER...SEA LEVEL CHANGES AND STRONG CURRENTS MAY OCCUR ALONG ALL COASTS THAT COULD BE A HAZARD TO SWIMMERS AND BOATERS AS WELL AS TO PERSONS NEAR THE SHORE AT BEACHES AND IN HARBORS AND MARINAS. THE THREAT MAY CONTINUE FOR SEVERAL HOURS AFTER THE INITIAL WAVE ARRIVAL.
THE ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL OF THE INITIAL WAVE IS 0324 AM HST WED 02 APR 2014
I would of thought that only the coast facing directly into the epicentre would see significant shoreline action . Interestingly though as far as the west coast of Sth America there isn't a worse spot it could have happened , as it is sort of a bay or kink in the coastline that would capture and focus the tsunami tide . Everywhere else is curving away and a very shallow or close to non existant continental shelf . Generally speaking only places in the pacific that have issues during Tsunamis , is where multiple islands share a continental shelf with shallow harbours with large entrances , especially if they are facing directly towards or interestingly directly away from the direction of travel . This is where the wave or tidal surge splits around the narrow shelf waters and then collide on the far side to create a wedge of sorts . Generally speaking though most Pacific islands and quays/atolls rarely see anything as the often symetrically round shelf or lack there of easily deflects or creates very little resistance to the insanely long period swell . In large bays or even convex shaped shorelines suffer far gretaer risk even further away and this is where tsunamis and normal swells show similar attributes , but just on immensely different scales .
Yesterday morning about 3:30 am our tsunami alarms went off on our mobile phones, woke the neighbourhood and then the warnings came over the loudspeakers that are dotted around town.
Anyway, all calmed down and we went back to sleep.
Went for a surf later that morning at a relatively isolated beachie about 30 mins north (fun too, 3-4ft and glassy) and after about 90 mins a fire truck drove up the track and half a dozen firies with red flags waved us in. Told us the tsunami warning was still in place..
Second time in my life been ordered out of the water by firemen:)
It made over this side of the Pacific, albeit greatly reduced in size. From the BOM:
Australian tide gauges recorded small sea level rises of approximately 5 cm in the early hours of this morning (Thursday, 3 April) at Port Kembla (NSW), Spring Bay (Tasmania) and Esperance (WA). A small tsunami wave of 15 cm was recorded at Norfolk Island.
An 8.2 earthquake was recorded off the coast of Northern Chile about 50 minutes ago (depth 10km), which has triggered a tsunami warning for the region.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has issued a Tsunami Warning for Chile, Peru and Ecuador. A Tsunami Watch has been issued for Colombia, Pana,a, Costa Rica, Nicuragua and El Salvador.
The threat to Hawaii is 'being evaluated' by the PTWC, however the BOM have advised that there is NO tsunami threat to Australia.