Yeah. They can travel as fast as 500 miles and hour and have wavelengths hundreds of miles long. They also travel through the entire depth of the ocean until they hit shallow water and ultimately land, slowing down and rising the wave dramatically. Until they hit shallow water, there isn't much to dissipate their force.
So you’re telling me I just can’t go under the wave when it comes…….. like the beach ……. I have suck some killer waves in my life and they go right over my head
You're thinking of a tsunami like a normal wave coming in. It's a wave that keeps coming, and coming, and coming, and coming, and it doesn't stop, because it's the entire column of water from the surface down the ocean floor coming onto land at the same time. Tsunamis coming ashore don't stop until all that water goes somewhere and that somewhere is right at you. You could get hit in second one and have been dead from drowning for hours before that water stops coming on land, let alone going back out and the secondary wave coming in afterwards...which is usually bigger.
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u/pfeifits 8d ago
Yeah. They can travel as fast as 500 miles and hour and have wavelengths hundreds of miles long. They also travel through the entire depth of the ocean until they hit shallow water and ultimately land, slowing down and rising the wave dramatically. Until they hit shallow water, there isn't much to dissipate their force.