Quote:
Originally Posted by Inmykombie
I hope its a fizzer too.
But my understanding of a Tsunami is that its not the size of the wave, but the volume of water , and the fact that the oceans level rises to the point where it rapidly moves and floods an area.
A foot or so rise in water level could do plenty of damage.
Quickly rising water can be very very dangerous especially with our heavily populated coastal areas.
We live near a coastal lagoon that flodds in heavy rain....Never mind a Tsunami.
My advise is keep an eye on the weather channels and sites for a day or so.
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That's true, for most tsunamis....they don't get to be very high but the volume of water coming in behind the wavefront is vast. That's why you see pictures of entire bays of water emptying out just before the "crest" of the wave comes in. The wavelength of a typical tsunami can be on the order of several hundred kilometers.
The ones you see that are like your typical rollers are fairly rare and all depend on the topography of the local sea bottom the wave happens to be moving over. Although a very big disturbance, like the 2004 Indonesian event, will produce a typical wave. Breaker type waves generally occur where the sea bottom rises rapidly from a great depth and shelves quickly in a narrow space....like the 2003 tsunami on the north coast of PNG. But, when they do occur, they're whoppers. The PNG wave was 90 feet high and reports from parts of Sumatra close to the 2004 quake epicenter put some wave heights at close to 50 metres ....though generally they were 15-30 feet high for most of the coastal areas.