
8.2 magnitude earthquake off Russia with potential to generate a tsunami - hgezim
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/events/PAAQ/2013/05/24/mnafyn/1/WEAK53/WEAK53.txt
======
thresh
Being in Moscow, which is 6000+ km away from the epicentre of the earthquake,
we still felt the tremors... Fascinating.

~~~
Grue3
I am also in Moscow and I call bullshit on this.

~~~
btilly
I have experienced plenty of earthquakes where one person felt it quite
strongly and another living nearby didn't.

How easy it is to feel varies depending on what floor you're on, how well
constructed your building is, what kind of ground you're standing on, etc,
etc, etc.

Furthermore at that distance the earthquake should be a slow roller, which
means that someone who is focused on something might not notice while another
person in the same room could notice, realize how much motion there is, and
freak out. I've been there as well - as the person watching a movie who
ignored an earthquake that everyone outside of the movie was quite aware of.

So the fact that you live in Moscow and didn't feel it is not grounds to call
BS on someone else claiming that they felt it.

------
jensnockert
Updated with more information, there won't be a tsunami (probably)
[http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/events/PAAQ/2013/05/24/mnafyn/2/W...](http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/events/PAAQ/2013/05/24/mnafyn/2/WEAK53/WEAK53.txt)

~~~
marquis
Supplementary data to your link in case of a change: historical tsunami travel
times in hours:
[http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/tsu_travel_time_events.shtml...](http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/tsu_travel_time_events.shtml#Pacific)

Most relevant: <http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/icons/1923_0203.jpg>

~~~
pjungwir
How can a tsunami cross the Pacific in 10 hours? Isn't that as fast as an
airliner? Of course I'm not questioning the maps, but isn't that shocking? How
does it work?

~~~
sp332
It's not a wave that physically moves as a single mass of water across the
ocean. It's a shockwave that propagates _through_ the ocean.

~~~
Thrymr
It's not a shock wave, it's a shallow water wave (because the wavelength is
much larger than the depth of the ocean). The speed depends on depth [v =
sqrt(g*H)]; for typical deep Pacific (5000 m), that is ~220 m/s or 500 mph.

------
iSnow
Why is this still all-caps - in 2013? It's not like there are any teletype
lines left that cannot process lower case.

Is this some kind of tradition or does NOAA still use EBCDIC mainframes?

~~~
toddrew
These messages are always in caps to send faster over slower systems.

[http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Computing/Capital_Letters....](http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Computing/Capital_Letters.htm)

I spent a decade as a communicator in the navy and radio teletype is still the
primary method of communication at sea.

~~~
tricolon
That makes sense.

However, I argue that the NOAA could serve their warnings on the web in all
lowercase for the sake of readability. Then again, that could be a quick hack
for someone.

~~~
tomkarlo
NOAA / NWS advisories tend to have a lot of proper names. It looks really
wacky if you just lower-case them (and it's non-trivial to convert them to
proper capitalization automatically.)

(I tried to do this back in about 1999. I don't think it's gotten much easier,
although having geo APIs might help somewhat.)

Also, apparently there's some international standards around this kind of info
that require it to be upper case: [http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-
drum/2012/10/blame-united-n...](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-
drum/2012/10/blame-united-nations-all-caps-weather-service-bulletins)

------
lysium
Here's a map and more info:
[http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/?p=PAAQ/2013/05/24/mnafyn/2/WEAK5...](http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/?p=PAAQ/2013/05/24/mnafyn/2/WEAK53)

Currently (6:51 UTC), no warnings.

------
D4M14N
Is a depth of 385 miles normal? That would put it deep in the earths mantle
wouldnt it?

~~~
glurgh
It's very deep - seems to have something to do with subduction, take a look at

[http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000h4jh#...](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000h4jh#summary)

and

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadati%E2%80%93Benioff_zone>

Looks like they can be felt very far but are less dangerous.

------
vsbuffalo
We felt a small earthquake in Davis, CA earlier tonight. Active day for our
earth! I quite like earthly events like this — they really make one realize
how minuscule we are.

~~~
salgernon
I was in mountain view for the '89 loma prieta quake. The walls of our tilt-up
on easy street we're waving like flags, and the huge Costco shelves in the
shipping room collapsed, shattering a workers arm. I know that this is nothing
like the horrors that other people in quakes have faced, but for years
afterwards my flesh would crawl when a large truck would pass by. Then I moved
to Oakland just in time for the '91 firestorm...

------
nitrogen
I imagine NOAA and NWS bulletins are in all caps for compatibility with
ancient systems, but I still have to wonder if they'll ever see a reason to
start using lowercase letters.

~~~
waterlesscloud
My guess is it's for legibility on faxes, which go out over radio.

But it does seem like there might come a day when that tech is completely
obsoleted.

------
toddsiegel
We felt here in India, in Gurgaon, near Delhi.

~~~
neilxdsouza
Off topic: I am in Gurgaon too!

------
cskau
No tsunami warning for Japan as of writing:

<http://www3.nhk.or.jp/sokuho/tsunami/index.html>

------
MarlonPro
it's just past midnight here in socal. I live in Long Beach, CA - few miles
from the pacific ocean. I'm closely watching <http://ptwc.weather.gov/> . No
warning as of this writing.

------
mtgx
Is it crazy to think that there may be a pattern for all these strong
earthquakes in the past few years since the Haiti one, and that they may be
linked?

~~~
marquis
It's the Pacific Ring of Fire, which includes Haiti, Japan, Chile, New
Zealand, Solomon Islands and Indonesia (list goes on) which have had deadly
quakes in the last few years - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire>

*edit, not Haiti which has its own crazy deep-earth stuff going on in the area

~~~
softbuilder
The ring of fire doesn't seem to include Haiti:
[http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=36428](http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=36428)

The Caribbean instead has it's own smaller "ring":
[http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0121/Haiti-
eart...](http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0121/Haiti-earthquake-
Why-the-Caribbean-is-a-mini-ring-of-fire)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I personally always get Haiti and Papua New Guinea confused in my head. I know
they are very different, but for some reason I have to think for a few seconds
when someone says Haiti.

~~~
anonymfus
>but for some reason

Because both islands are divided between 2 states each.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Is that it? I think its just a neural hash collision in my head that resulted
from hearing about missions in both countries in catholic elementary school
(they are both very poor, at least PNG and Haiti).

------
Roboprog
There was a 6.5 magnitude aftershock, near the site of the 8.2, this morning
as well. Also just under 400 miles deep.

------
mattryanharris
...but will it?

~~~
lysium
No:
[http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/events/PAAQ/2013/05/24/mnafyn/2/W...](http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/events/PAAQ/2013/05/24/mnafyn/2/WEAK53/WEAK53.txt)

~~~
FoeNyx
indeed, as this document indicates : "DUE TO THE DEPTH OF THE EARTHQUAKE NO
TSUNAMI IS EXPECTED."

The Depth of the subterranean earthquake is generally a major factor in
Tsunami (The main factor being the displacement of the water mass above).

The last two M9~ magnitude earthquakes causing deadly tsunamis (Indian Ocean
2004, Japan 2011) were only at a Depth of 30km (19mi). This one is very deep,
at 619km (385mi) below the surface.

------
kbar13
the NOAA "discussion" section used to be a really interesting read, wonder
where that went...

