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Earthquake in Samoa 2009


eternal light

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Wow, that's so scary.

But I was wondering if the tides in California got high, I know yesterday they had an advisory. I'm still waking up so I haven't been searching the coast yet today. :D

K, so I checked the Laguna Beach webcam, doesn't look like a thing happened.

Whilst looking though, and from CNN on the tube this region is taking a whopping. Now it's reported a 7.6 hit this Am in Indonesia. Massive damage, deaths.

And this all just after the typhoon in Manila.

Whew!

I best stop complaining about a little heat.

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From what I've read the water does the most damage when it recedes. The 1964 Alaska quake sent a tsunami all the way to Peru. Crescent City, CA was hit with a 20 foot tidal wave around midnight and they said the water was going 300 mph when it receded. I have a book on it called 'Dark Disaster'

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Wow, that's so scary.

But I was wondering if the tides in California got high, I know yesterday they had an advisory. I'm still waking up so I haven't been searching the coast yet today. biggrin.gif

K, so I checked the Laguna Beach webcam, doesn't look like a thing happened.

Whilst looking though, and from CNN on the tube this region is taking a whopping. Now it's reported a 7.6 hit this Am in Indonesia. Massive damage, deaths.

And this all just after the typhoon in Manila.

Whew!

I best stop complaining about a little heat.

I did not hear any reports on the radio about California tides this morning, so no news is good news.

As for the earthquake in Indonesia, it was a whopper.

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Here in Hawaii we had a 2 foot tidal surge during the afternoon yesterday. Normally our tides only vary about 3 feet so the extra 2 was definately noticed around harbors, the reefs at deep channels and the shore.

The Civil Defense people drove up and down the North Shore announcing "Don't go in the water!". It wasn't that bad but in this day and age of paranoia apparently any "threat" is treated with overfear. I was in the water and felt the surge and swirling being the adventure seeker that I am. There was no "wave" to it just a fast rise then slow recede of the extra-active tide. Hawaii experiences these type of sub-tsunami's fairly often while being so exposed in the central Pacific. Last significant tsunami here was in 1960.

The regular waves were fairly small yesterday and today but excellent shape for bodysurfing! :D

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^Two foot waves are easier than the twenty foot ones that clobbered Samoa.

Of course they are. I think I explained the water activity and that it was no "wave" at all, just a quick rising of the water.

We had 20 foot real waves last Friday, not tsunami's, and it's an awesome sight to behold. Pipeline was in rare shape for this early in the wave season. It was a swell generated by typhoon Choi-Wan that circled east of Japan and headed into the North Pacific. Strong winter storms there create our extraordinairy surf at places such as Pipeline, Waimea Bay and Sunset Beach. Best kine in the world brah! ;) Shaka!

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I've got a lot of friends and family who live in Hawaii.

I also have a friend who is stationed in Guam right now. I should ask him how the waves were.

My friend that lives on Maui said they were really, really high, but not high enough to be considered a tsunami.

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I've got a lot of friends and family who live in Hawaii.

My friend that lives on Maui said they were really, really high, but not high enough to be considered a tsunami.

Actually wave height has nothing to do with the definition of tsunami. A quick reference check will fill you in with more details but basically the waves we have here in Hawaii are surface generated by wind from distant storms. The succession of waves are called a swell and that can last hours or days. They "break" as in the intro to Hawaii 5-0 and then dissipate.

A tsunami is formed generally undersea by an earthquake or landslide (above and below water level) and is energy that is unseen on the ocean surface in the open sea. These "waves" are extremely deep and only show when the ocean floor becomes relatively shallow. The surge of water is like an extremely fast tide and rush of water. On a small scale fill a glass of water and pour it out across the floor. That surge is not a breaking wave but a tiny scaled down example of what a tsunami does when it hits shallow water then land.

We often have waves in the winter here in Hawaii that are much larger than most tsunami's but they don't have the water volume of a tsunami or the speed. A 30 foot regular wave will break, then roll towards shore and dissipate as a shorebreak, then recede back to the sea without leaving the shoreline innudated. The tsunami has so much water behind it because the vertical size of it, going DEEP not HIGH, then flattens out and comes inland with way more water, ala the poured out glass in the example I mentioned before.

A 5 foot tsunami will do untold more damage than a 30 foot regular wave because the rise in the ocean is much broader in scope and just keeps on coming.

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