Some tsunami warnings for Washington coast may be delayed
Nov 11, 2025, 12:12 PM | Updated: Nov 14, 2025, 9:15 am
A tsunami hazard zone sign is posted with a tsunami advisory in effect. (Photo: Mario Tama, Getty Images)
(Photo: Mario Tama, Getty Images)
Tsunami warnings that could affect the Washington coast may now take longer to reach the public.
Alaska State Seismologist Michael West told KIRO Newsradio Tuesday that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has ended its contract with the Alaska Earthquake Center (AEC).
“I don’t want to for one moment suggest that warnings are going dark,” West said. “The National Tsunami Warning Center is run by outstanding people working with a lot of data from different places.”
But West said the data gathered by instruments in the Aleutian Islands, which he calls a “breeding ground for tsunamis in the Pacific,” will be lost, and that will slow down the information coming from there to Washington.
“We’re talking about a delay of, you know, a couple of minutes on a tsunami that takes some hours,” West said.
However, a two-minute delay in Alaska would be more critical, given that such a tsunami could hit there in about 20 minutes, he added.
The $300,000-a-year contract had been in place for about 20 years.
“NOAA ceased funding the grant to UAF’s Alaska Earthquake Center in FY24,” the agency said in a statement to KIRO Newsradio. “While UAF initially continued to provide baseline seismic data to support tsunami warning capabilities for the NOAA National Tsunami Warning Center, AEC has since made the decision to turn off the real-time dataflow to the Center. The AEC is one of many partners supporting the National Weather Service’s tsunami operations, and NWS continues to use many mechanisms to ensure the collection of seismic data across the state of Alaska.”
