Tsunami Warnings

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blakamin

4431 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#207308 18-Dec-2016 16:06

Is it just me or are there tsunami warnings being issued every time there's an earthquake in the wider pacific region?

This morning there was an quake near Papua NG and, as usual, NZ issues a tsunami warning.

NZ had a warning in place for at least an hour, and it took 20 minutes (maybe) to issue a warning, after Australia said there was no risk (I'm still yet to see an actual warning in Oz).

Is this going to end up with a case "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"?

Are they just issuing warnings after every quake over 6?

Thoughts?

Only asking as my kids are about 400m from a beach and in a tsunami area (even though there was a warning and evacuation issued for their area after Kaikoura, they didn't even know).

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blakamin

4431 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1691819 18-Dec-2016 18:39

robjg63:

Don't know what you really expect to be honest.....

A bit of science and more than a guess by someone with access to the NZ civil defence twitter account....

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#1693071 21-Dec-2016 08:44

I've heard them go off (in anger) only once - on 14 November, when they were started at about 2AM.

The earthquake was at 12:02am. The first waves had already long arrived before the alarms were activated.
There was a tsunami threat. The waves with ~2m height had been showing on the Kaikoura gauge shortly after the quake.
The view from my window showed people were trying to evacuate at risk areas, but apart from the warning being a couple of hours late, the roads were gridlocked.

If there had been a serious tsunami in Chch, then people would not have been able to be evacuated in time. Not even close.

dickytim

2514 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1693092 21-Dec-2016 09:36

So we don't want the warnings until the data is crunched, but by the time the data is available the tsunami has been and gone?

On the other hand we don't want preventative warnings unless the data suggests there is a real danger coming.

This is the rock and the hard place.