Exercise Pacific Wave 18

Exercise Pacific Wave 2018: 1 September to 30 November 2018

At its 27th session, the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/PTWS-XXVI, Tahiti, France 28-31 March 2017) approved the conduct of Exercise Pacific Wave 2018 (PacWave18) during the last Quarter of 2018.

PacWave18 will simulate Pacific countries receiving Tsunami Threat messages containing wave amplitude forecasts. Member States may then use the information in their decision-making to assess their national threat. The exercise intends to encourage country and regional readiness for the next tsunami, and supports the development of improved regional tsunami products and procedures, including new products from the Northwest Pacific Tsunami Advisory Center (NWPTAC) of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), and the South China Tsunami Advisory Center (SCSTAC) of the China State Oceanic Administration (SOA). It is recommended to be at least a table-top exercise and countries are encouraged to engage communities down to the local level. PacWave18 is overseen by the Task Team on PacWave Exercises (ICG/PTWS-XXVI.1).

PacWave18 will include multiple scenarios to enable all Member States to select a distant or regional event that will cause the greatest impact to their country. Several scenarios will include and use observations from past real events, such as from the 2009 South Pacific, 2010 Chile, and 2011 Japan tsunamis. Each exercise scenario, to be available in the PacWave18 Exercise Manual, will start during the daytime with a dummy message issued by the PTWC, and as needed, by the NWPTAC and SCSTAC.

UNESCO Media Advisory (English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese)
PacWave18 Exercise Evaluation submission

Live communication test: Tsunami Service Providers to Member State Tsunami Warning Focal Points - 0000 UTC, 5 NOVEMBER 2018

Exercise Documents

Document

Exercise Pacific Wave 2018 - IOC

PacWave18 Announcement, IOC Circular Letter No. 2709, 22 January 2018 (PDF, 339 KB)
PacWave Exercises Task Team - Terms of Reference, Members (PDF, 26 KB)
PacWave18 Overview (PPT, 7.1 MB)
PacWave18 Summary Report, IOC TS 139, Vol 1-2, 2019 (PDF, 2.7 MB)

Exercise Manual

Exercise Pacific Wave 2018 Exercise Manual (IOC TS 139, Vol 1, rev 2, April 2018, PDF, 904 KB)

How to Plan, Conduct, and Evaluate Tsunami Exercises IOC Manual and Guides 58, 2013

English (PDF, 1.3 MB)
Spanish (PDF, 1.1 MB)
Summary Powerpoint (Oct 2011) (PPT, 3.0 MB)

NWPTAC Enhanced Products (For Member States of the NWPTAC Area of Responsibility only)

IOC Circular Letter No. 2702, Starting of issuance of experimental NWPTAC Enhanced Products on 20 December 2017, including Users Guide (13 Dec 2017, PDF, 124 KB)
NWPTAC Enhanced Products Area of Service, Dec 2017 (PDF, 517 KB)
Users Guide for the NorthWest Pacific Tsunami Advisory Center Enhanced Products for the Pacific Tsunami Warning System (May 2018, PDF, 1.95 MB)

SCSTAC Enhanced Products (For Member States of the South China Sea region only)

IOC Circular Letter No. 2706, Starting of trail operations of the South China Sea Tsunami Advisory Center (SCSTAC) on 26 January 2018 (5 January 2018, PDF, 124 KB)
SCSTAC Coverage Area and Recipient Countries (DOC, 153 KB)

Tsunami Advisory Products for the South China Sea Regional Tsunami Warning and
Mitigation System (Technical Document, v1.3, Dec 2017) (PDF, 2.3 MB)

PTWC Enhanced Products (Web Site)
User’s Guide for the PTWC Enhanced Products for the PTWS (IOC TS 105 rev, Aug 2014)

English, correction 14 Oct 2014 (Full resolution, PDF, 4.4 MB)
Spanish, correction 14 Oct 2014 (Full resolution, PDF, 4.4 MB)

Previous PacWave Exercises

Exercise Pacific Wave 2017, IOC TS 131 Vol 1-2, March 2018 (PDF, 1.2 MB)
Exercise Pacific Wave 2006-2016 - Decade of Reflection, (PPT, 3.2 MB, PDF 2.9 MB)

IOC Tsunami Warning Focal Point (TWFP) and National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) Definitions (IOC Executive Council, July 2014) (PDF, 53 KB)

Updating information on National Tsunami Warning Centres (NTWC) and Tsunami Warning Focal Points (TWFP) for the PTWS region according to new definitions (23 January 2015)
IOC CL 2563 (PDF, 352 KB)
IOC CL 2563 Annex, NTWC, TWFP Nomination Form (MsWord, 82 KB)

PacWave18 Scenarios

Earthquake Scenarios (PDF, 67 KB)
Tsunami Travel Time Maps (HTML)

Historical Tsunami & Seismicity Maps (HTML)

PacWave18 PTWC, NWPTAC, SCSTAC Master Schedule of Events List (incl Earthquake Scenarios) (MSEL) (PDF, 269KB)

PacWave18 Scenarios - Messages
Download ZIP files containing Messages issued by PTWC, JMA/NWPTAC or SCSTAC.
Download ZIP files containing PTWC Sea Level Station Data or Marigrams from the historical event. The Sea Level Data format is (Decimal Julian Day, Meters).

Marigram plots (note some stations did not observe tsunami) - posted 21 Aug 2018
All data (sea level, plots) for historical event (2009, 2010, 2011, 2013) set to 5 Nov 2018

Tonga Trench (Samoa region), M8.1, 29 Sept 2009 (PTWC, 2.9 MB)
(Sea Level Data, 4.4 MB; Marigram plots (621 stations), PDF, 20 MB)
Peru-Chile Trench (Central Chile), M8.8, 27 February 2010
(PTWC, 2.8 MB, corr 16 Aug 2018)
(Sea Level Data, 9.6 MB; Marigram plots (731 stations), PDF, 30 MB)
Japan Trench (Tohoku), M9.1, 11 March 2011 (PTWC, 3.3 MB) (NWPTAC, 1.28 MB)
(Sea Level Data, 8.6 MB; Marigram plots (837 stations), PDF, 31 MB)
South Solomon Trench (Santa Cruz Islands), M8.0, 6 February 2013
(PTWC, 1.1 MB) (NWPTAC, 1 MB)
(Sea Level Data, 5.1 MB; Marigram plots (871 stations), PDF, 27 MB)
South Solomon Trench (Santa Cruz Islands), M9.0 (PTWC, 3.1 MB) (NWPTAC, 1.31 MB, posted 18 June 2018)
Manila Trench, M8.8 (PTWC, 4.2 MB) (NWPTAC, 1.0 MB) (SCSTAC, 1.6 MB) (posted 18 June 2018)
Tonga Trench, M9.0 (PTWC, 3.0 MB)

PacWave18 - UNESCO News Note, 20 September 2018

English (PDF, 582 KB)
French (PDF, 442 KB)
Spanish (PDF, 399 KB)
Russian (PDF, 460 KB)
Chinese (PDF, 775 KB)

PacWave18 Exercise Evaluation Form (Exercise Manual, plus Tsunami Ready question)
Please complete online by 21 December 2018, at
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/pacwave18_eval (open from 1 Sept 2018)
For reference, fillable PDF-format is available, English (PDF, 900 KB)

If you have difficulty submitting online, you may submit the Evaluation PDF
by email to the Task Team chairs:
Jo Guard, NZ MCDEM, jo.guard@noaa.gov
Laura Kong, ITIC, laura.kong@noaa.gov

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