Background and Scope - Tohoku, Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 - page 31

Figure17.Tsunamiwaveheightsandarrivaltimesatfivetidestationsaroundthe
PacificRimonMarch11,2011(Source:UNESCO‐IOCSeaLevelDataFacility)
Figure 17 shows the wave activity due to the tsunami at five locations around the
Pacific Rim. The arrival times and amplitudes seen in the filtered tide gauge data
agree well with the model forecasts shown in Figure 16 and emphasize the variability
of tsunami effects for different locations. Hilo, Winter Harbor, Crescent City,
Waitangi, and Arica are located at successively greater distances from the tsunami
source, as the increasing lag time between the event trigger at 5:46 UTC and the start
of wave activity confirms. The energy of the propagated wave, however, is not
exclusively a function of distance.