Hello everyone, I'm WLKY meteorologist Matt Milosevic. Want to give you an update on *** huge earthquake that occurred last evening. And what the effects have been so far this Wednesday morning and through the day ahead. This earthquake happened in the Kamchatka Peninsula of eastern Russia just offshore. It measured 8.8 on the Richter scale, and in terms of earthquakes that have been measured, this ties for the six strongest ever that we have recorded, and it's the strongest since 2011. And if you remember, that was the earthquake. That hit Fukushima, the nuclear plant there and caused the meltdown in portions of Japan there some 14 years ago. The good news is we have not had similar tsunamis and earthquake concerns with this particular earthquake, but it did cause tsunamis, alerts, watches, warnings, and advisories to be issued. Now those warnings have been downgraded to advisories, but still through Portions of the Alaskan Aleutian chain, the Hawaiian Islands, and the west coast of the United States. While the tsunami levels have not been huge in Hawaii, between 3 and 6 ft, also 3 to 4 ft waves measured off the coast of California, 5000 miles away from where this earthquake struck. Now what happens is the tectonic plates beneath the ocean surface that released the earthquake, that energy travels. Upward through the layers of the depths of the ocean to the surface and that's where those swells start to move out in all directions from it. And as those swells travel hundreds and thousands of miles away and at hundreds of MPH, those swells can travel at speeds over 500 MPH, so heavy water moving fast and gaining strength. It is definitely *** concern for life and property along coastal regions that are in these earthquake and tsunami zones, especially along the Pacific Ocean rim, that ring of fire that we know where the majority of many earthquakes and tsunamis can happen on planet Earth. It's not the only places, but it's one that tends to see the most. Now the controlling factors and how large *** tsunami could be is earthquake magnitude, the depth that it occurs, and all. So the type of quake. Remember that those tectonic plates, they can bump together, they can slide up and down. So there are different types of earthquakes that can cause tsunami waves, and this one did produce again those tsunami waves and what happened, and they saw this in the Hawaiian island chain, you get something called drawback or when initially before that swell gets to the coast, the water recedes and you actually see the ocean or the tides head out. offshore before it comes swelling back in, and this is where the worst of tsunamis start is when that fast moving ocean water starts to swell on shore, especially as it comes up as the sea floor gets shallower and shallower. That's where you start to see those waves can get higher and higher. They move inland and that's where you can see damage to structures including harbors, marinas, and buildings. Immediately on shore and that's why you may have heard that there were many municipalities and cities across the Pacific coast that were trying to get people offshore and to higher ground just in case the worst of the tsunami potential became realized. Now here in Kentucky there's *** seismograph near the University of Kentucky, and that 8.8 earthquake that happened over 5000 miles away. Was even felt and measured here in the Commonwealth. It was too little to feel by the time it got to us, but it was strong enough to be measured. All right, that's the latest on earthquakes and tsunami talk this week. Hopefully that stays quieter and we'll keep you updated on all of it, including weather right here on YouTube, WLKY.com and WLKY, the mobile app. Make sure you check all of them back often as we bring you all the updates.