Buoy Reading Prompts Tsunami False Alarm Off N.J. Shore

Anyone who was on Facebook last night and saw a post about a strange drop and then a sudden rise in the Atlantic Ocean water level might have been appropriately alarmed.

A buoy centered about 200 miles east off the coast of Long Beach Island showed a drop of 88 feet in the ocean level, followed by a sudden rise of 180 feet, according to the National Data Buoy Center.

But there was a simple explanation for the "event mode" being triggered, according to nj.com.

The National Data Buoy Center, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said workers were doing routine maintenance on the buoy. When they pulled up the bottom pressure recorder, it led to the bizarre readings.

"It went into event mode while it was being serviced," an NDBC representative said. "It wasn't an actual event."

Various news outlets speculated the readings could be due to meteorites or earthquakes, which wasn't the case.

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