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VAWS Webinar – Tsunami Alerting in Alaska

Wednesday, Oct 14, 2026 — 11:00 am–12:00 pm AKDT





Speaker: Summer Ohlendorf, Science and Operations Officer, National Tsunami Warning Center

A geographic map showing the Pacific Ocean, Alaska, and surrounding landmasses, depicting the path of the 1946 Aleutian Islands tsunami. A red dot near the Aleutian Islands marks the earthquake origin, surrounded by vertical orange bar graphs indicating localized wave heights. Concentric black contour lines numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 represent the estimated travel time in hours as the tsunami waves radiated south across the open ocean and north into the Bering Sea.
A map illustrating the propagation and wave travel times of the April 1, 1946, Aleutian Islands tsunami.

Abstract: From Palmer, Alaska, the U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center monitors 24×7 for any hazards that may produce dangerous tsunamis for the continental U.S. and Canadian coasts. Over the decades, the center has incrementally continued to grow in both area of responsibility and breadth of the hazards it monitors. This session will provide an overview of the types of tsunami hazards present in Alaska, how the team, NTWC, and their partners assess and alert for tsunamis as events unfold, and how you can be better prepared for the next one.

Headshot of Summer Ohlendorf in front of a map

Bio: Summer Ohlendorf serves as the Science and Operations Officer at NOAA’s National Tsunami Warning Center. In that role, she manages the center’s data ingests and analysis, training and operations, and integration of scientific advancements. Summer holds a Ph.D in Geophysics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has now been at the NTWC for 11 years. She’s passionate about leveraging the expertise of the TWC staff and their scientific partners to improve warning quality and community preparedness for a broad range of tsunami sources

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