The power and allure of the ocean: How surfers eyed the tsunami alerts and wondered
Coastal residents sought answers to vital questions: How big would the waves get? How worried should everyone be?And surfers had another question about the tsunami: Can we surf it?
- On July 29, an 8.8-magnitude earthquake hit off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
- It prompted tsunami warnings across the Pacific region.
- Tsunami waves reached Hawaii and the West Coast but evacuation orders and an advisory in Hawaii were later lifted and beaches along the West Coast began reopening as the threat to U.S. shores eased.
No sooner had the tsunami watch been issued than the text messages began coming in.
Friends and family wanted to know if I was safe. Would the waves reach me? Should I drive, or even run, to higher ground?
As a lifelong surfer who currently lives in Southern California, I’m familiar and conversant with hundreds of different types of waves. I’ve traveled to dozens of countries in search of waves.
Waves are why I moved here to this surf-rich stretch of coastline. The ocean gives me energy and allows me a space to relax and unplug from the often harsh storylines I follow.
But the ocean itself can also be harsh. And on July 29, residents of coastal California, Oregon and Washington scrambled for answers to vital questions: How big would the waves get? How worried should everyone be? Would this be the Western Hemisphere’s version of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed almost a quarter of a million people?
And surfers had another question about the tsunami: Can we surf it?
Tsunamis aren’t like regular surfing waves
Tsunamis aren’t like the regular ocean swells that surfers ride.
Those waves are formed by wind from areas of low pressure over the oceans. That wind spins water molecules into ripples that eventually become waves, morphing into open ocean “swells” that can travel thousands of miles before they break as waves on beaches and reefs.
Surfers monitor weather systems in remote corners of the planet, watching for storms that will push these swells our way. There are color-coded charts on websites stretching out two weeks or more so we can plan our surf sessions. Every serious surfer in California currently knows we’ll probably get a pretty epic south swell from Hurricane Iona and Tropical Storm Keli, both currently spinning away off the coast of Central America.
Tsunamis, by comparison, form suddenly and violently.
A monumental shift in tectonic plates under the ocean like the July 29 earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, which measured a whopping 8.8 magnitude on the Richter scale, immediately displaces vast amounts of water, sending a surge in all directions that can form devastating waves once it reaches shallower water.
Think of laying in a bathtub:
If you blow across the surface of the water, you’ll create little ripples that will lap against the rim of the tub like tiny surfing waves. But if you sit up suddenly, you’ll likely send water splashing across the bathroom floor. That’s your own personal tsunami.
But let’s get more scientific here. The power and size of waves depend on a combination of factors: The height (or depth) of the swells that produce the waves, measured from peak to trough of each wave traveling across the ocean; the wavelength, or “period,” of the wave, that is, the distance between each wave peak in a swell; and the steepness of the beach or land that the wave eventually breaks on.
A more gradual shift from deep water to shallow will result in a smaller, less violent wave. By contrast, a sudden shift in ocean depth means waves get pushed up suddenly, forming higher waves. That’s why expert surfers crave waves that break over coral or rock reefs.
Despite the dangers lurking below, those waves – like Oahu’s infamous Banzai Pipeline, or Tahiti’s Teahupo’o, where the 2024 Olympic surfing was held – offer steep, ledgy waves known to surfers as “slabs.” Those are the arenas where surfing’s gladiators compete, and they’re a world away from your average “beach break” where beginners learn to surf.
The X factor with tsunamis is not, as most people probably think, the “height” of the waves.
What makes tsunamis so dangerous is often their immense wavelength — the second part of the wave power equation.
Falk Fedderson, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, explained why tsunamis are so fundamentally different than “normal” waves:
If you stand at the end of a long pier and look down at ocean waves when a swell is running, Fedderson said, you’ll typically see the swells are around 200 or 250 feet apart. That’s because typically ocean waves have a “period” of between 10 and 20 seconds between waves, he said.
At the other end of the scale, each day’s tides – which act essentially like one or two monumental but very slow waves a day – have a period of either 12 or 24 hours.
Between these two extremes lie tsunamis, which often have periods of 10 or 15 minutes between waves. That means tsunami waves can be thousands of feet apart, but it also means that the volume of water, and the eventual size of the wave, acts very differently than the waves that break most days on the California coast.
“A tsunami can basically concentrate all the energy that was spanning 4,000 meters in deep water – all that energy has to get concentrated into much shallower water, and that's what allows a tsunami to get so big,” Fedderson told me.
Put another way, tsunamis aren’t so much “high,” when they’re in the form of swells in the open ocean. They are, rather, extremely “wide” or “thick.” At least — that’s my non-scientific way of putting it!
But are they surfable?
Can you surf a tsunami?
The University of Hawaii at Hilo says flat out no. That’s because tsunamis lack a face. They are “more like a wall of whitewater,” the university says.
That doesn’t mean we surfers don’t think about these things.
Once it became clear that whatever was going to hit the California coast was not going to be catastrophic, I have to admit the surfer in me took over from the journalist.
The surf has been basically flat here in Southern California for a couple of weeks. Small, sloppy, rubbishy waves. I’ve had to run to get a workout instead. I hate running.
On the evening of July 29, I talked with Chuck Westerheide, a spokesman for San Diego County, and asked whether officials would be patrolling beaches and telling people to keep away. No, he said. The county was under a tsunami advisory – far less serious than a tsunami warning.
No evacuations. No need to panic.
“Strong currents and a tsunami are possible, and waves and currents can kill or injure people who are in the water,” Westerheide said. “But that’s key – people who are in the water.”
After that, I sat glued to the surf cameras overlooking Waikiki Beach in Oahu for a few hours. The estimated time for a tsunami from the Kamchatka earthquake came and went. No discernible large, dangerous waves broke on that distinct crescent of beach, which should have seen a tsunami long before California.
I was tempted.
Surf a tsunami? Should I drive down to my old haunt of Windansea Beach in San Diego and paddle out?
Fedderson later told me that’s probably a bad idea, though he admitted he’s no expert.
“Um. This goes far beyond the bounds of my expertise, but I don't think so,” he said when I asked him if I should have gone surfing in the dark of night. ”But if the amplitude of the tsunami offshore were 1 foot – you don't want to be anywhere near the coast.”
The tsunami amplitude offshore was probably more like an inch, Fedderson said. I likely wouldn't have noticed while out sitting on my board. Still, shivering in the night chill and worrying about sharks for something that may not even lead to a good ride?
Good thing I stayed home.