Last I head Garret MacNamara was being flown in to surf “the wave” in the Hilo harbor. But haven’t seen any videos or heard any reports. The media sure had a field day with this one, though!
Anyone have a first-hand report from their location?
kirk
Taylor, I think what occurred was a tsunami acting as tsunamis do; I do not think it fit the definition of a seiche, which requires wave period matching resonance of a enclosed or semi-enclosed (and I am pretty sure they mean almost-fully-enclosed so that once the perturbence enters, its egress is dramatically restricted; we are not talking a three-sided box, but more of a large lagoonal body with a very small inlet/aperture) body of water.
One way to tell is that typically a seiche will propogate for looooong after the perturbance that caused it has ceased; for example, the Great Lakes will “slosh” for days after the winds that set up the seiche have ceased. From what I’ve seen/read of the recent tsunami, it exhibited behavior typical of a tsunami.
Media frenzy? was that wrong? Recall that 200,000 people were killed by a tsunami only six years ago. As one writer put it:
“A 9.1 earthquake caused one of history’s deadliest waves in 2004, so no
one was taking chances with the aftereffects of an 8.8”
For comparison, 8.8 is about 300 times more powerful than the quake that hit Haiti 6 weeks ago.
And the last time that this fault in Chile went off, 35 foot high waves swept into Hilo, killing many.
I think its good that the media was all over this one. The fact that the waves were not as big in most places as they could have been, is just lucky… people still died, however…
“In at least one case, the Chile quake tsunami did cause a lot of damage
in the fishing village of Constitucion. The waves and the quake combined
to kill more than 300 there, and Chile’s defense minister admitted the
Navy made a mistake in not issuing a tsunami warning.”
Pretty sure the families of those people didn’t see it as just a media frenzy…
Well said Keith. Surely a case of better safe than sorry. I think there wasn’t much more than a serious surge up here in Oregon.
Some interesting info that the media didn't cover. There was minor but widespread damage along the shores of San Diego Bay. Several feet of water washing in and back out in about 5 minute intervals. It went on for about an hour. Boats bashing into one another and docks, cleats ripped from docks, the pier at the Bahia was damaged. The CG was watching the action on television all the while the real deal was happening right outside their window!
Once the waves enter a confined body of water like SD Bay, the wave refracts and reflects off the different shorelines creating crazy currents and occilations. Anybody that thinks these things are jokes is crazy. If it hadn't been such an ugly, rainy weekend, I'm sure there would have been injuries or maybe worse.
i was in stretch's shaping room picking his brain when g-mac called stretch to tell him that he was going to get towed into the tsunami wave by a helicopter. stretch's response: "you sure that's a good idea?" i still smell like cigar
Definitely the real deal. Not the huge breaking wall like some of the Indian ocean Tsunami footage showed but still lots of power and damage. It seems like we were hit harder in So Cal than in Hawaii. I went out fishing on San Diego bay on sunday (the day after the tsunami) and we heard the Coast Guard over the radio warning of channel buoys missing in Oceanside harbor. I don’t know if it was related to the tsunami but the out going tide on sunday was like nothing I have seen in the bay before. It was ripping so fast around Ballast point that it looked like rapids in a river. It could have just been from the heavy rain we had the day before and the full moon, large tidal swing.
I found a neat video of the wave draining out the harbor here in San Diego.
Very interesting Lee. Do you know what time that was?
I was out in the water @ 4:30pm, supposedly a couple hours past the warning, but in the space of less than a minute I was sucked way out to sea, and this was not the rip running next to the jetty… Made me wonder.
My beloved said she saw a guy from the southern Oregon coast saying he saw water moving around the harbor in similar ways to what you described. I remembered from oceanography it is called a seiche wave - which I pronounced “See ch” - but seeings how my beloved is a speech language pathologist, and I’m a kook, we looked it up, and it’s pronounced “Say sh.” Anyway - Sound like your assessment of what may have gone down had it been a nice sunny day makes it a good thing it wasn’t.
Much less dramatic than expected possibly due to size of fault area that moved. Also depth of quake may have had effect.
Why the Chile quake tsunami was smaller than feared
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18588-why-the-chile-quake-tsunami-was-smaller-than-feared.htmlSunday afternoon I went for a Kayak on sydney harbour near manly where I live and the tide was doing weird things. This is obviously a long way from Chile. I launched the boat and the water was a good 20cm below the low tide mark exposing a lot of sea grasses and stuff that you never see. After a 40 minute paddle when I came back the water had gone to the high tide mark and everything was under water. I’m not sure if it’s conected but on the way back I saw a lot of small dead fish floating around also.
We had three hard chargin' groms get ticketed by the lifeguards.
Three top young competitive surfers will never know if they actually rode the tsunami. All they know is, it's going to cost them.
Teens Kolohe Andino, Luke Davis and Ian Crane were issued citations for continuing to surf after San Clemente lifeguards directed them to get out of the ocean during Saturday's tsunami alert.
From left, Kolohe Andino, Ian Crane and Luke Davis were told to sit on the beach after being called out of the water during Saturday's tsunami alert. Lifeguards ordered citations when the three continued surfing. Sheriff's deputies were friendly, chatting with the surfers while duly issuing the citations.
The three were the only surfers in the water at the San Clemente Pier when lifeguards closed the ocean at noon for an hour, after an alert stated that if a tidal wave were to hit, it would likely be between noon and 1.
"I didn't know they could write us a ticket," said Andino, 15, the reigning Surfing America champion and holder of nine national scholastic titles.
Was it worth it?
"Probably not," he said. "But it was fun. We were psyched because the waves looked fun."
Emergency officials only expected a minor 1- to 2-foot surge, but lifeguards closed the ocean to public use in case it exceeded expectations. Precautions were taken up and down the coast. At Dana Point, the harbor island, cove and Doheny jetty drive were closed to the public.
The three surfers, told repeatedly to exit the water at noon at San Clemente Pier, were issued citations for unsafe beach activities. Lifeguards said it applies if someone does something dangerous or does something that distracts lifeguards.
"Anytime that our attention is taken away from public safety, it's going to be a hazard," Marine Safety Officer Blake Anderson said. "That's when measures such as the citation would need to be done."
At 1 o'clock sharp, the three members of Surfing America's U.S. team paddled back out and resumed surfing beside the pier. If any of them rode the tsunami, they never knew it. It proved to be nothing more than an imperceptible tidal surge.
That said, it is entirely possible a seiche was generated in some estuary or embayment somewhere in the path of the tsunami; I would love to see some analysis or footage, if that is the case.
Thanks for replying Sak - I guess it would depend on the length of time the events Lee V. described lasted. Interesting about the great lakes… I thought I remembered reading/hearing a tsunami could set up the seiche wave in a bay, but my knowledge is pretty simplistic.
It absolutely can, I just have not seen that in any of the videos or descriptions, and have not heard any chatter regarding seiches set-up by the tsunami in the scientific community yet; I’ll definitely update you if I do. I think a lot of really neat observations and data will unfold over the course of the next few months as a result of this phenomenon (the tsunami).
What I have seen/heard so far is the typical withdrawl-and-surge pattern, nothing to suggest that resonance had set up in any particular harbor or embayment.
I’ve been fascinated by resonance and seiches as long as I can rememeber, hence my interest in this. I like your thinking, just don’t want to jump to conclusions just yet.
Thanks for taking the time with this Sak - I look forward to seeing if you find out if any seiches actually happened.
When I learned of their existence it was a trip because I’d often wondered about the phenomenon on a small scale, from cups to back yard swimming pools - Then to learn the same thing could happen in a bay blew my mind.
As I recall, the classic seiche (I was taught you pronounced it “sy-ch”) is a standing or ocillating wave in an enclose body or nearly enclosed body of water. It has morphed into a wave of any type in an enclosed or nearly enclosed body of water. A seiche can be initiated by wind, landslide, or earthquake (any source that causes a wave, including a tsunami). For instance the grand daddy seiche was in Latiyuna (sp?) Bay in Alaska where a huge chunk of glacier broke off and splashed into an inverted funnel shaped bay creating a 100 foor + wall of water that swamped several boats and kill a number of people back in the 1950’s.
The stuff my buddy witnessed around Harbor Island in San Diego Bay was definitely the result of the tsunami because of the timing and the lack of wind, landslides or local earthquakes. The five minute period (between peaks) sounds seiche-like rather than the 20 minute period predicted for the tsunami. The youtube video of Dana Point harbor appears more tsunami than seiche.
Its all stupidly academic but thats what keeps us geologists in business; buzzwords and bullshit…
“buzzwords and bullshit…”
Ha! Classic Lee - I’ll look for the Dana Point footage. Guess no one was filming at Harbor Island…
When the 1960 Chilean earthquake occurred, a friend of mine and I went out onto Big Rock, in La Jolla, during what we thought was low tide.
We were able to walk out to the rock with essentially dry feet. Within minutes the tide started rushing in, stranding us on the rock, with
''standing room only!'' We thought we would have to swim for it, but the tide turned, and went down. The ''tide'' cycled in and out every 15
minutes for over an hour, before we got tired of watching it, and walked back to the beach during the next out cycle.
the preparation was well planned for this one. the dana point harbor bait dock broke in half and we had to move the spirit of dana point (tallship) out of the harbor because it sits 12 feet deep in the water and the five minute cycles were causing it to touch bottom. not good.
as for kolohe and luke and ian... they had the balls to stick it out and surf on a beach under city jurisdiction (that means cops and lifeguards). about 50 yards from marine headquarters and in clear sight of everybody. the boys down on state beaches got no tickets and nobody hassled them =] but they also didnt get the glory of surfing in front of the fishermans and the newspaper article portraying them as bad ass surf kids. i respect their antics though, it was a really fun day. from what i heard though, the cops were not at all friendly haha.