I'm officially unimpressed with warning systems! Sure they might have been broadcasting it on the radio and TV but what if you're not watching or listening to those? I wasn't! I've been busy cleaning and doing assessments, so how was I supposed to find out?

By golly I'm lucky that I accidentally clicked the weather warnings system on my favorites, I don't check it every day. I saw a High Alert warning of a Tsunami and they've now confirmed that one has been generated. Lovely! Where's all these great warning systems that are supposed to let everyone know?

Judging from my neighbors I don't think they know yet.

And yes, we live in a nice little bay, but we're further back from the waterline and a little higher as well so... *cross fingers*

Ok, that's my rant for lack of warning and stupidness of it.

distance + altitude =/= safety! D= unless you're at the top of everest. XD i'd be terrified to be stuck in a place with a tsunami warning. for serious. i've studied them in geography like, three times in four years. i know all about them and i'd be all "dkfgjdkdflgmdfg;df RUN. D:" if one was suddenly warned for me.

.. especially considering i live in the middle of the country. <<

i googled and found this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/am...mi-1913209.html

i'm guessing that's what you're referring to?

I was under the impression we were off tsunami alert. They said that it had been lifted haha.

That's the one! I'm waiting for mum to get back home, she's got the car and my dog so I can't go anywhere. Nothing is clear, it's just reports of sea rises so far and that a tsunami is I guess on it's way. I'm not sure if we're supposed to leave or not. It doesn't sound that bad in some places and other places it sounds terrifying.

I'm just confused, Australian warnings are not really helpful at this stage.

it doesn't seem bad until it finally starts. x.x it's like, first the sea levels rise, then the sea is pulled back. and then suddenly there's like .. a huge wall. x.x i watched some documentary on the 2004 boxing day one in indonesia that had a ton of amateur video in it and it was scurry.

So sea levels rising is bad? Here's something I don't really understand a lot about but this has been updated in the last few minutes.

It doesn't sound that big...

We had a tsunami advisory here. This isn't the first time, either. It's bloody scary if you ask me. But from the small size of the one that hit Hawaii, I'm pretty certain it's not going to be anything huge here. I think it was actually supposed to hit two hours ago and I haven't drowned, so yay!

How far can these things travel? I'm in Canada o_O

Yeah, we've been on one as well, ( New Zealand ). Although, I'm on the west coast of the north island so it was barely registered here. The warning is still in place for a little while, unpredictable surges etc. The only thing that concerned my family was not being able to go for a swim at the beach safely, so I'm taking them to the river. :lol:

-puts on geography nerd top hat-

it depends on the amount of land that's been displaced. when the earthquake occurs beneath the water then the earth will rise on one side, and the height it rises = the height the water above it rises. judging by the reports, the ground wasn't displaced all that much this time. XD

but there's an island in the canaries which is susceptible to earthquakes. and if a large one occurred then it could cause one side of the mountain to collapse, dumping tons and tons of debris into the ocean, creating a mega-tsunami. XD and that could potentially make its way all the way up western europe/the east coast of north america.

-takes hat off and stomps on it- stop making me a dork. D8

Well, last time there was a tsunami warning the sea level rose to the high tide line. OMG SCARY MUCH?

For the record, 1 metre at sea is a lot bigger when it hits land. But not big enough to wipe out anything. You'd get bigger swell in a storm.

I'm kind of over it now. Found out that the initial would have hit before I even knew about it so even if had been super bad I'd have had no idea until the wave, ironic.

As it is I'm mainly annoyed with the warning system in effect. Can't they make something a little more understandable for those who don't have geographic or scientific smarts?

If anything this should wake up the council around here and get them thinking "maybe we should improve things in case something really bad does ever come".

We went to watch the tsunami. The waves were shorter than I am (I'm 5'1") =( It was very disappointing. Normal waves are higher than our tsunami!

But I kinda felt more worried about the people in Chile than the people in New Zealand, anyway.

(Also, MmmNaana I had no idea you were a Kiwi xD).