Official messages for US and Canadian coasts
For current instructions, use official messages for your coast and your local authority. The bulletin section below cannot establish current warning status.
- US and Canada: NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers. Check warning-center coverage: NTWC serves the continental US, Alaska and Canada; PTWC serves Hawaii, the US Pacific and Caribbean territories and the British Virgin Islands. Read US message categories.
- British Columbia: EmergencyInfoBC provincial updates. Read BC notification zones.
Available NOAA NTWC and PTWC bulletins
Retained snapshot retrieved . This is not a list of active warnings. Check each source category, issuing center and issue time: later messages may supersede it. These feeds do not cover every warning product. Follow the official warning center and your local authority. NOAA
Available Bulletins
Retained NTWC and PTWC messages with issuing centers, source categories and links; not a determination that an alert remains active.
Geographic Context
Explore source locations and named regions, not official coastal warning boundaries.
Separate Timestamps
Source issue time, feed update time and snapshot retrieval time have different meanings.
Official Decisions
Evacuation and all-clear instructions must come from the responsible warning center and local authority.
Understanding Tsunamis
Tsunamis can result from earthquakes, volcanic activity, landslides or atmospheric disturbances. These causes are background information, not a list of layers monitored by PocketWorld. This map displays available NOAA NTWC and PTWC bulletins alongside selected USGS earthquake records.
Reading a bulletin for the United States or Canada
Start with the bulletin's issuing center, issue time, named region and category. The earthquake location is not the boundary of an alert area. A newer information statement, update or cancellation can change the meaning of an earlier message, so open the source bulletin before interpreting a map marker.
The table shows the National Tsunami Warning Center and Pacific Tsunami Warning Center feeds available to PocketWorld, not every North American warning product. Each row names the issuing center. Use U.S. Tsunami Warning Centers for the official current products. The regional guides below explain US alert categories and British Columbia notification zones and link to the responsible authorities.
Which warning center covers a US or Canadian coast?
The National Tsunami Warning Center serves the continental United States, Alaska and Canada. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center directly serves Hawaii, the US Pacific and Caribbean territories and the British Virgin Islands, with wider international forecast responsibilities. PocketWorld reads their separate NTWC Atom feed and PTWC Atom feed. An event's earthquake location is not the coastline covered by its message. A missing table row cannot establish conditions on any coast.
Warning, advisory, watch and information are different categories
In NOAA's alert definitions, a warning concerns a tsunami expected or occurring with potential for widespread flooding; an advisory concerns dangerous currents or waves near the water. A watch indicates a possible tsunami after a distant earthquake. An information statement is not a blanket all-clear: the threat can be undetermined and later messages can change the assessment. Read the latest official message for its named area rather than treating a retained category as current status.
Three timestamps, not one live status
Source issue time comes from the bulletin's explicit issue field when available. Feed update time comes from the Atom entry; it is not substituted for an unknown issue time. Snapshot retrieval time describes when PocketWorld saved the feed. A retained snapshot older than 15 minutes is visibly labelled as stale, and this page does not display snapshot rows retained for more than 24 hours. Even a recently retrieved message may describe an older event or have been superseded.
Earthquake context is not a tsunami warning
The map also includes selected USGS earthquake records. The USGS tsunami flag indicates that tsunami information should be checked; it does not confirm a tsunami or an active warning. A large or shallow earthquake alone does not establish what a particular coast will experience.
This context layer reads the USGS past-month M4.5+ feed, considers its first 200 records, and keeps earthquakes of M5.5 or greater with reported depth below 100 km. This selection is not a complete earthquake catalogue, a coastal screening model or a forecast of wave height or arrival time. Historical reference points are not substituted for missing observations.
Missing bulletins, a quiet map or an old observation must not be interpreted as an all-clear. PocketWorld is an explanatory map, not an emergency notification channel. Follow the responsible local authority for current instructions.
How to interpret tsunami information
PocketWorld places available NTWC and PTWC bulletins and selected USGS earthquakes on a shared map to explain source locations and ocean-basin context. It does not display buoy measurements or official coastal warning boundaries. A marker is not an evacuation order. Official centers can revise bulletins as seismic analysis and sea-level observations become available.
Always follow the responsible national warning center and local emergency authority for alerts, evacuation routes and all-clear messages. PocketWorld preserves source context and is intended for exploration, not as a replacement for an official warning channel.
Related tools in other languages
Hazard data sources
Events are aggregated from USGS, EMSC, GeoNet (New Zealand), NOAA, NASA EONET, NASA FIRMS and GDACS, then normalized and deduplicated.
Frequently asked questions
How fast do tsunamis travel?
Tsunamis can travel at speeds up to 500 mph (800 km/h) in deep ocean water, slowing as they approach shore but gaining height.
What triggers a tsunami warning?
Official centers evaluate earthquake location, depth, magnitude, modelling and sea-level observations. Criteria and alert categories vary by responsible authority.
How much warning time is there?
It depends on the source and coastline. A nearby tsunami can arrive within minutes, so natural warning signs and local emergency instructions take priority over this website.