[Update: Jan. 16, 11:30 a.m.] The tsunami advisory was lifted locally after midnight on January 16, 2022.
[Original Story] Residents of Santa Barbara — as well as the entire West Coast of the United States all the way up to Alaska — were advised to stay away from the shore and remain on higher ground in the wake of a tsunami advisory triggered by the eruption of an underwater volcano early Saturday morning off the coast of the Pacific island of Tonga. The mid-ocean volcano is roughly 5,000 miles from California, and no evacuations were ordered.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s office issued alerts of waves one to two feet high. In Alaska waves as high as 3.3 feet have been reported, and in the state of Washington, they’ve been a foot higher. In Santa Cruz, the waves have been such that trucks along the waterfront were found partially submerged. Hawaii had been initially included in the warning but was later exempt when it turned out the waves proved smaller than initially projected.
