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Comment by Bud | Hacker News Reader

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Bud·

When you will be destroyed:

http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/2011/03/11/lhvpd9/01/webetalhvpd9...

Who will be destroyed:

http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2009/12/san_franciscos_ts...

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Interesting how Alaska manages to be both first and last on that list.

Mainly because of its long "tail" (stinger?).

Here is the map [1]. The Aleutian islands are hit first, but it seems the big effect is the slowing-down of the wave in very shallow waters. (Here's depth maps: [2][3]). Note the contours -- it takes ~9 hours for the tsunami to cross this small sea (Bering), the same time as it takes to cross the entire Pacific from Japan to British Columbia.

According to [4], shallow-water waves (including tsunamis) have speed proportional to sqrt(depth). Not sure how accurate this approximation is, but it seems to get the order-of-magnitude right.

This FAQ [5] says that much of the energy should be reflected off the continental slope (where it goes from deep to shallow abruptly), so the tsunamis there should be pretty small. The tsunami height-forecast [6] says the same thing.

[1] http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/2011/03/11/lhvpd9/06/ttvulhvpd9-0...

[2] http://www.gebco.net/data_and_products/gebco_world_map/image...

[3] http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceancolor/additional/science-...

[4] http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter16...

[5] http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/faq/ArcticTalkingPoints.htm

[6] http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/2011/03/11/lhvpd9/energylhvpd9-04...

The technology we have these days and the power of the social web is mind blowing. I hope these links go "viral".

It would be advisable that if you are not directly affected, you should avoid hitting these links. The most important information appears to be static files, but it would be a horrible tragedy if affected visitors were unable to get the information they need because server capacity was exceeded. I carelessly clicked the link to the high-res map in a link above, only to find the server over capacity.

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