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M8.7 earthquake in Western Pacific, tsunami warning issued

earthquake.usgs.gov

151–160 of 266 posts

Re: M8.7 earthquake in Western Pacific, tsunami warning issued

#151
post #4

That is _really_ big. It will likely crack the top 8 ever recorded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes

From videos online so far, it seems the strength of the quake didn't translate to massive lateral movement. There seemed to be lots of intense P-wave wiggling and bumping rather than large S-wave swings back and forth. The big Japan quake was one of those, where you saw offices being slid back and forth and everything flying off shelves. Not sure what that means for the tsunami - but so far it seems less intense than…

Japan uses a scale that measures the movement[0]. Of course depending on where you are the result changes, but it's a lot more usable for the practical "how much shaking will be involved here/was involved here".

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_se...

Re: M8.7 earthquake in Western Pacific, tsunami warning issued

#152
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is height the only thing that matters? Presumably 1x 2m wave is less impactful than 10 x 1m waves spread 20 seconds apart?

Despite the common vernacular calling them "waves" they're really more like really really high tides. You're talking about something that happens over, say, 10-90 minutes, not seconds.

[deleted]

Re: M8.7 earthquake in Western Pacific, tsunami warning issued

#153

https://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/tsunami/maps is getting a hug of death :( If anyone gets on, please post a screenshot.

This also happened during the tsunami last year.

Does anyone know of a map app that works offline and can save overlays like this?

Re: M8.7 earthquake in Western Pacific, tsunami warning issued

#154

Can the wave be seen and tracked from planes above? I know they can travel at upwards of 300+mph but given the distance from Russia to the west coast seems like it should be able to be tracked.

There are planes, buoys and other things being mentioned on the news here in Japan as ways things are being tracked. Maybe not what you meant, but tracking the wave isn't necessarily correct. There are many waves, and the initial wave is often (in this case also) not the largest.

The news mentioned a previous similar event where the largest wave was 4 hours later.

Re: M8.7 earthquake in Western Pacific, tsunami warning issued

#155
post #50

My wife decided to not travel to Japan due to an impending warning from a manga for July 2025. I have been making fun of her all month only to get this tsunami warning now! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2025_Japan_megaquake_prop... . > The 2021 reprint capitalizing off this revived popularity warned of a "real disaster" in July 2025, causing a minor case of mass hysteria in 2025 when summer trips to Japan from E…

the manga was about a mega quake in Japan, not a tsunami from Russia

Re: M8.7 earthquake in Western Pacific, tsunami warning issued

#156
post #14

Quick link to the tsunami view: https://www.tsunami.gov/ Just “watch” level for US west coast, but warning level for Hawaii and Alaska.

Air alarms are going off in Hawaii. Still a few hours away, but they are not joking around. Saying it can wrap around all the islands and hit anywhere

Phone just went off screaming with a warning here in NZ - more a "stay away from the water" warning than a "head for the hills" one

Re: M8.7 earthquake in Western Pacific, tsunami warning issued

#157
post #50

My wife decided to not travel to Japan due to an impending warning from a manga for July 2025. I have been making fun of her all month only to get this tsunami warning now! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2025_Japan_megaquake_prop... . > The 2021 reprint capitalizing off this revived popularity warned of a "real disaster" in July 2025, causing a minor case of mass hysteria in 2025 when summer trips to Japan from E…

the manga was about a mega quake in Japan, not a tsunami from Russia

Thats well within acceptable cleirvoyant margins of error.

Re: M8.7 earthquake in Western Pacific, tsunami warning issued

#158
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is height the only thing that matters? Presumably 1x 2m wave is less impactful than 10 x 1m waves spread 20 seconds apart?

Despite the common vernacular calling them "waves" they're really more like really really high tides. You're talking about something that happens over, say, 10-90 minutes, not seconds.

It's a distinction without value I think. There are waves, and many of them. There is a rise in the sea level. For anywhere affected, both certainly matter. Like you mentioned, tsunami isn't a brief event. And here in Japan, they are talking about tsunami waves, not a singular tsunami. And talking about sea level rise and checking the local power poles for sea level indicators from previous tsunami events and floods.

Re: M8.7 earthquake in Western Pacific, tsunami warning issued

#159
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make sense to me intuitively. It must be a wave. Imagine you have a fault line. There is a left side and a right side to the fault line. If the left side lowers with a shift then that shift MUST be localized to the area around the fault. Because if it wasn't then that means there's an elevation change across the board for everything to the left of the fault. You see how that doesn't make sense? So if the…

Yes, they are waves, but they are often very long waves. A typical 1m wave might be 20m long. A tsunami wave might be a kilometer long or longer. That is why people say they are like a tide. The wave arrives, then does not recede for several minutes. So, while a 4m wind driven wave might break over a seawall and even wash a car off the road, a 4m tsunami washes ships over that same seawall and floods the city. It’s a…

> I’ve been at sea when a 3m tsunami passed, we barely felt it.

How far out at sea were you? And how did you know at the time?

Re: M8.7 earthquake in Western Pacific, tsunami warning issued

#160

What happens to the US West coast?

All the tectonics and volcanos that are underground are linked, these seismic events aren't just isolated on islands. I hate to say this but we can expect a major event in August. All I can tell people is to prepare but I see people just with blank expression, there is almost no concern at all which reminds me very much of November 2019.

Okay Charlie Frost
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