Tsunami surges around the Hawaiian Islands from the 1 April 2014 North Chile Mw 8.1 earthquake

The 1 April 2014 Iquique Mw 8.1 earthquake ruptured a segment of the megathrust fault offshore of northern Chile and generated a moderate‐size tsunami across the Pacific. Tide gauges in Hawaii recorded over 1 m of wave height despite the long distance from the source and position away from the main radiated energy lobe. Inversion of global teleseismic body waves combined with forward modeling of the tsunami at four near‐field DART stations arrives iteratively at a self‐consistent finite‐fault model with very compact dimensions. The slip distribution produces a NNE‐SSW trending seafloor uplift patch that enhances the tsunami directionality in the WNW, resulting in good matches to observed DART and tide gauge records around the Hawaiian Islands. The relatively large waves at selected locations in Hawaii can be attributed to a combination of the spatial slip distribution and the resulting short‐period waves that triggered localized resonance over the insular shelves. This event highlights the importance of characterizing detailed slip distributions in analysis or forecasting of tsunamis even for a compact source.