TEWS

Tsunami Early Warning System (TEWS) provides earthquake generated tsunami information and forecasts the level of tsunami threat for the people live along the coastal zone.

Component of TEWS

TEWS consists of monitoring component, processing system and dissemination system. The monitoring components are 21 seismic stations (In collaboration with EMC/SQU), 10 sea level stations, 10 GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), and 12 Wave radar stations (6 pairs). All data from the stations are sent to the center (DGMET-Early Warning Center) through satellite, GPRS and Internet. The seismic system is supported by 2 processing systems namely SeisComP3 (main processing system) and Antelope as a backup.

The earthquake parameter and its location give the first indication of tsunami warning. We use the main criteria for potential tsunami with earthquake magnitude greater than 6.5 and located in the Makran zone. SeisComP3 can give this indication within less than 5 minutes after the earthquake and it will be processed in application TOAST in the next minutes as a part of decision support system (DSS) to produce tsunami warning messages. The DSS is supported by 3000 pre-calculated tsunami scenario in the database and also EasyWave application. In case the earthquake parameters are not fit with the available scenario in the database, EasyWave will be used to generate a quick and easy tsunami scenario as the forecasting of the threat along the coast. The earthquake parameter and tsunami forecasting are published in the bulletin of the tsunami warning messages and disseminated to the stakeholders and public through the identified warning chain.

Products of TEWS

The tsunami scenario is translated into the threat level of tsunami along the coast of Oman. The tsunami threat levels on the coast are:

1. No threat and end of threat for no expected tsunami wave and the tsunami threat is over.
2. Advisory for tsunami wave height is less than 0.5 meter,
3. Watch for tsunami wave height is between 0.5 and 3 meters
4. Warning for tsunami wave height greater than 3 meters

TEWS will produce 4 bulletins of tsunami warning messages;

• Bulletin 1: The message contains earthquake information with tsunami potential, sample.
• Bulletin 2: The message contains earthquake information and tsunami warning in the identified coastal zone with their level of threat, sample.
• Bulletin 3: The message contains earthquake information and observation of tsunami wave height at sea level stations, sample.
• Bulletin 4: The message contains earthquake information and end of threat, sample.