The training workshop will cover tsunami warning operations and the use of the PTWC Enhanced Products for tsunami threat decision-making, with specific attention on the warning and emergency response plan and standard operating procedures (SOPs) of the Cook Islands. Topics will include warning and response SOPs and challenges, warning decision support tools, warning messages and alerting, evacuation concepts and planning, and awareness strategies. Over the last 10+ years, with improvements in data quality, quantity, and real-time availability, PTWC’s response time has dropped significantly from an hour to 5-10 minutes for tsunami events. At the same time, with each great earthquake and tsunami since 26 December 2004 helping to increase scientific understanding, better techniques have been developed to quickly characterize the earthquake and numerically model the tsunami. In 2014, the PTWC implemented Enhanced Products for the PTWS that now include wave amplitude forecasts in both text and graphical formats, and that require each country to explicitly assign Warning / Watch status in their own messages to their coasts. In July 2015, the First Pacific Ministerial Meeting on Meteorology adopted the Nuku'alofa Declaration, calling for support to ensure that National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) have the necessary capacity to support sustainable development, and specifically for the need to strengthen their tsunami early warning systems. Accordingly, the goal of this training is to increase the capacity of first responder operational staff to efficiently and effectively respond to tsunamis.

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