January 15, 1858 Tsunami: Hiiuma Island, Estonia

Name: January 15, 1858 Tsunami: Hiiuma Island, Estonia
Start: 1858-01-15
Location: Hiiuma Island, Estonia

January 15, 1858 · Questionable tsunami

A tsunami probably caused by a magnitude 3 earthquake began at Hiiuma Island, Estonia on January 15, 1858 at 11:10 UTC. Its effects were recorded at 1 place.

Where the waves reached

The source (white) and every runup with a place, colored by the water height recorded there. A ring is a runup NCEI marks doubtful.

Under 1 m
1 to 3 m
3 to 10 m
10 to 30 m
30 m and more
Height not recorded

Tsunami warnings in force

Travel times

How long the first wave took to reach each part of the ocean, one line for each hour up to 24, estimated from the source and the depth of the sea.

The travel times are computed in your browser, which needs JavaScript.

1 to 4 hours
5 to 6 hours
7 to 14 hours
15 hours and more

Computed in your browser the way NOAA’s own travel time maps are: the wave travels at the square root of gravity times the depth, over NOAA’s ETOPO1 depths averaged to a 10 arc-minute grid. Checked against NOAA NCEI’s maps for 21 tsunamis over the first 24 hours, these lines fall within 10 minutes of NCEI’s at half the points compared and within 52 minutes at 9 in 10. They give when the first wave could arrive, not how high it is; bays, harbors and island chains finer than the grid can see it later. Not for use in a warning: see tsunami.gov.

The tsunami

Date: January 15, 1858, 11:10 UTC
Source: Hiiuma Island, Estonia
Cause: Questionable earthquake
Earthquake: Magnitude 3, 8 km deep
Runups recorded: 1
Waters: Ocean
How certain: Questionable tsunami
Source location: 59.300° N, 22.600° E

The toll

The record gives no deaths, injuries or damage for this tsunami.

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

Reference #14513 lists two earthquakes 16 minutes apart north of Hilumaa Island. Notes “two waves (tsunami) on northern coast of Hiiumaa Island”. Cites Doss (1898) and Musketov and Orlov (1893)

Reference #14514: Doss (1898 ) described the observations of a sudden rise of water level (twice, and up to 1 m) of brooks at two shoreline locations in NE and NW Hiiumaa. A contemporary explanation of a waterspout from the sea did not appear plausible for him. Instead, he was confident that these have been tsunami wave observations from an offshore earthquake. A recent study on the Finnish coastal waters (Pellikka et al. 2014 ) suggests that a meteorological front can cause rapid and strong sea level variations if atmospheric disturbances and the dimensions of bays form a fav ourab le combination. Consequently, the 1858 event has been reclassified as a possible meteotsunami and removed from the [earthquake] catalogue.

Every runup

Nearest the source first. Heights are above sea level at the time; a tide gauge reads half the wave’s full height.

Where	Country	Km from source	Water height, m	Inland, m	Measured by	First wave, UTC	Deaths
N. Coast of Hiiumaa Island	Estonia	25			Eyewitness observation of water height

Every tsunami in 1858 The 1800s Tsunamis of Estonia The earthquake This day in weather history Alerts in force

Sources

Tsunami events and runups from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-10-01. NCEI tsunami event 6192.