Samoa Tsunami at Wellington 

Wave Details

Time of arrival of first wave* 9.4 h
Height of the first wave 0.025 m
Time of arrival of highest wave* 35.6 h
Height of the highest wave 0.108 m
Period of the highest wave 27.7 min

* hours after the earthquake.

Commentary

The initial waves were tiny, but the waves that arrived about 36 h after the earthquake excited the 27 min seiche period of the harbour.

Figure 1. Samoa tsunami at Wellington showing: A. long wave record, denoised to remove spurious waves; B. height of each wave; and C. period of each wave. EQ denotes the time of the earthquake (17:48 on 29 Sep 2009, UTC).

Figure 2. Samoa tsunami at Wellington showing: A. raw long wave record; B. distribution of significant wave height with time and period. EQ denotes the time of the earthquake (17:48 on 29 Sep 2009, UTC).

How were these calculated?
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