Pacific Tsunami Warning Center

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC), located on Ford Island, Hawaii, is one of two tsunami warning centers in the United States, covering Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific, as well as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea. Other parts of the United States are covered by the National Tsunami Warning Center.

PTWC is also the operational center of the Pacific Tsunami Warning System and issued tsunami warnings for dozens of countries from 1965 to 2014. In October 2014, the authority to issue tsunami warnings was delegated to individual member states. As a result, the center now issues advice rather than official warnings for non-U.S. coastlines, with the exception of the British Virgin Islands.

The PTWC uses seismic data as its starting point, but then takes into account oceanographic data when calculating possible threats. Tide gauges in the area of the earthquake are checked to establish if a tsunami has formed. The center then forecasts the future of the tsunami.