Photo: National Tsunami Warning System
Residents living in low-lying coastal areas of California likely had no idea of a tsunami warning Tuesday morning calling for them to evacuate the area. At around 12:30 am Alaska time a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck about 170 miles southeast of Kodiak Island. That quake triggered a tsunami warning over the next couple hours for British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, and Hawaii, all while many of the people impacted were sleeping.
The city of Kodiak was expected to see the first wave by 1:45 am, but when that hadn’t hit about two hours after the earthquake, tsunami warnings for some of the affected areas slowly started dropping. Finally, at 4:17 am, the National Weather Service canceled the warning for California.
The Tsunami Watch for the California coast has been cancelled. #cawx
— NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) January 23, 2018
The NWS did still report some minor surges along the California coast by 9:30 am with data from the Santa Barbara tide gauge but pointed out there was still no expected impact for the West Coast at that point. After all the commotion in Alaska and the multiple warnings sent out to areas along the Pacific, the maximum wave height recorded anywhere following the event was just 0.7 feet at 3:38 am in Old Harbor, Alaska.
Starting to see some minor #tsunami surging on the Santa Barbara tide gauge this morning. This is a result of a large earthquake that occurred late last night SE of Kodiak AK. NO IMPACTS EXPECTED in #SoCal! #CAwx pic.twitter.com/pkSN7sNEOU
— NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) January 23, 2018
