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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…
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You are off by about a factor of 1,000. Each incremental increase in magnitude is 10^1.5 in power. The difference between 1994 Northridge and this one is 2.1, so roughly 10^3 difference in power.
I thought that it was a log10 scale, so each increment of 1 on the scale is a 10-fold power increase, not a 10^1.5-fold.
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You are off by about a factor of 1,000. Each incremental increase in magnitude is 10^1.5 in power. The difference between 1994 Northridge and this one is 2.1, so roughly 10^3 difference in power.
I thought that it was a log10 scale, so each increment of 1 on the scale is a 10-fold power increase, not a 10^1.5-fold.
The Richter Scale is a logarithmic scale, based on shaking measurements (think of the old pencil-based seismograph!). Power. (10^1).
The Moment Magnitude Scale (the more modern/replacement of Richter Scale) is based on energy. Geological organisations reporting on an earthquake will usually show this as "M " or "Mw ".
Richter works well for small-to-medium earthquakes, and it's not accurate for really large or distant earthquakes.
The energy released in an earthquake increases exponentially, not just linearly.
EDIT: The Moment Magnitude Scale is where the "10^1.5" figure is coming from. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale
I am afraid Waikiki will see flooding. I know Duke's and some other restaurants were closing early.
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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.
Again the only correct comment is downvoted. Watch Tsunamis on Youtube. The water just keeps coming and coming. They are like high tides.
At the start, there's just a white line at the horizon. Then the fishing boats in the harbor start rocking and jangling. Then water starts pouring over some walkways and sea walls.
Eventually the cameraman backs away and starts climbing a concrete tower; water starts to flood over the area where they had been standing. I think they climb a couple stories and are safe up there.
I haven't been able to find the video in years, but I remember being fascinated by it and I'd love to watch it again.
Edit: I never expected to find that video again, but here it is. A little more terrifying than I remember.
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
Japan forecasting tsunamis up to 3m across basically the entire eastern coast. First waves will hit within 10 minutes. https://www.nhk.or.jp/kishou-saigai/tsunami/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/live/ (live, Japanese) https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/live/ (live, English) The east coast is also where the vast majority of Japan's population lives, and was previously hit by the 2011 tsunami (Fukushima and all that). We'…
EDIT: Apologies, I misunderstood—a reply to this comment said they were just predictions. (I saw in this video[0] that the first waves had arrived, and assumed the heights would've therefore corresponded to actual measurements. But it's still in the "predictions" section, and I should've noticed that before posting....)
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It's complicated. Tsunami forecasting is a very inexact science and "3m" means "very large". The average actual height in eastern Japan (Tohoku) was 4-6m, but there were peaks up to 20m in places like Ofunato where the local geography funneled all the water upwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an...
Is height the only thing that matters? Presumably 1x 2m wave is less impactful than 10 x 1m waves spread 20 seconds apart?
What you get is not a "wave" but a wall of water.
to put this in perspective, and please, if you work for USGS or whatever, correct me if i am wrong: this is roughly the same magnitude of the 1994 Northridge earthquake in California. i think i got the scale the wrong way around, the magnitudes reported now are only larger (than Richter) with smaller quakes compared to the Richter; it looks like 8.8ML ~= M8.8. Sorry, i looked at the chart the wrong way around.
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci3144585/...
And today's earthquake for comparison:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000qw60...
And some information of Magnitude types: https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquake-hazards/magnitude-t...
I think it's probably safe to assume, that today's earthquake is much more energetic at least.
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.
No. When they travel at that speed they are not visible. Only when they hit shallow water (a necessary , but not sufficient, condition) do they slow down and become a threat.