SEMINAR: Meteo-tsunamis along the coastline of Western Australia

This presentation is on short period (< 5hrs, seiche frequency band) larger amplitude sea level oscillations along the coastline of Western Australian generated by metrological disturbances, known as "meteo-tsunamis". Inspection of tide gauge data along with weather records reveals that such events are frequently occurring at different parts along the WA coast and larger events coincides with summer thunderstorms (e.g. 22 March 2010 hailstorm), particularly associated with travelling pressure jumps (known as "Proudman Resonance phenomena"). Some events are found to be occurred along the WA coast with winter period cold fronts and strong wind gusts. Over the past decade, number of seismic origin tsunamis have been observed along the WA coast, however, except 26 Dec 2004 global event, most of thunderstorm forced meteo-tsunamis induced sea level oscillations are seems to be larger compare to seismic origin events. In addition, analysis of near shore current meter records reveals that strong oscillating currents during the meteo-tsunamis and high currents may cause navigation problems particularly at harbour entrances. We have examined the generating mechanism of meteo-tsunamis observed along the WA coast using numerical simulations. Further we have attempted to investigate the possibility of forecasting these events based on near real time regional meteorology.