(LEWES, Del.) - A tsunami buoy about 200 miles off the coast of New Jersey near Delmarva went into "event mode" over the weekend.
On Saturday one of the buoys monitored by the National Data Buoy Center recorded water levels dropping 80 feet then skyrocketing 180 feet in just 30 seconds.
The activity continued to happen over the course of three to four minutes before conditions returned to normal, according to the NDBC data for the buoy at station 44402.
NASA said Monday that the tsunami event could've been triggered by a small meteor crashing into the ocean since the Lyrid meteor shower peaked Sunday night.
Chris Petrone, a marine science advisor at the University of Delaware said it would be highly unusual for a tsunami to happen off the Atlantic coast. The reason is a wide shelf between the eastern coastline and the Atlantic Ocean acts as a buffer which would've absorbed much of the energy from a tsunami before ever reaching the shore.
Some beachgoers in Lewes were a little concerned to say the least.
"The idea of a tsunami here would be pretty scary," said Gabrielle Weiss of Washington, D.C. "Everything's pretty flat. How would we have known about it if we were sitting on the beach yesterday?"
But rest assured Delmarva, there's no need to panic.
The NDBC said routine maintenance on the buoy caused a false alarm. Typically the buoy's electronic monitoring system is shut off when maintenance is scheduled to avoid events from being falsely triggered.