Tsunami advisory for San Diego and Orange counties lifted by Pacific Tsunami Warning Center

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii has lifted the tsunami advisory that was in place for San Diego and Orange counties but has left it in effect for other areas of the California coastline.

The advisory expired locally at 5:29 a.m. Wednesday, several hours after the tsunami briefly raised the sea level about 4 inches in La Jolla and 8 inches in Los Angeles Harbor, according to NOAA data reviewed by the National Weather Service. The ocean rose by about 4 feet in areas of Northern California.

The advisory was issued on Tuesday in the wake of a magnitude-8.7 earthquake off Russia that produced a tsunami that led to alerts for the entire West Coast and for Hawaii, where the sea level ended up rising about 5 feet along the coast of Oahu. Thousands of residents rushed to higher ground.

“As far as I know, there was no significant damage in Southern California,” Tom Rockwell, a seismologist at San Diego State University, told The San Diego Union-Tribune at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

Scientists had predicted that the tsunami would reach San Diego County about 1:15 a.m. Wednesday and would be small. On Tuesday night, Rockwell estimated that the sea would briefly rise by less than 1 foot.