6 foot tsunami expected in Hawai'i -- 7.7 earthquake in BC.

The 7.7 earthquake in the Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, apparently hadn't first triggered much concern for a tsunami, and in fact locations closer to BC, Washington, Alaska and Oregon had fairly small waves, at 6" or less.  Of course, a 6" high tsunami wave is not like an ordinary wave, because the water keeps coming in.

But one deep-sea buoy registered a higher wave than expected, and the resulting modeling suggested that a lot of energy was sent towards the northern Hawaiian islands.  The further the location, it seemed some of the waves were much larger.

 Arena Cove, CA            0637UTC   01.1FT

 Crescent City,  CA         0602UTC   00.8FT

So a few hours after the fact, they've issued a tsunami warning, and are now predicting a possible 6 foot wave hitting Kahului, Maui.  The state likewise, responded by opening up emergency centers.

That predicted 6 foot wave by the way, is fairly significant, coming close to the tsunami generated by March 2011's Great Tohoku earthquake.

And of course it is a bit surreal watching people (via traffic cams) stuck in a traffic crawl trying to get out of Waikiki.

We'll see.

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Update: The good news is, the surge doesn't appear to be that big; the third wave was 1.9 feet high (and ~5 feet from peak to trough).