Assigned to the submarine base, Fremantle, for training duty with submarines, "Hutchinson" remained in Australia until 27 August 1945. Departing for the United States, she touched at Manus and Pearl before arriving at Terminal Island, California, on 10 January 1946. Here she converted to a weather ship. Following conversion, she proceeded to Seattle, Washington, and got underway on 6 February 1946 for weather station A in the northern Pacific. During the ship's four months on weather patrol in the Bering Straits and off the coast of Alaska it encountered the tsunami generated by the 1 April 1946 Aleutian Islands earthquake. The event took place after midnight near Rat Island in the Aleutian Islands chain. The sonar man alerted the bridge as the wave approached. The ship slammed head first into the huge wave which towered over the bridge. Everything tied down on the ship's exterior was swept away including all of the life boats and rafts. There was a hole in the deck where the #1 gun had been torn loose and where sea water poured in. Five seam splits opened in the ship's hull. The ship limped back to San Francisco, met by seagoing tugs about half way there. The ship was decommissioned at Treasure Island. After performing the demanding and essential task of weather picket for two separate periods, "Hutchinson" sailed to San Francisco, California, and decommissioned there on 15 April 1946. She was then recommissioned a Coast Guard vessel on loan from the Navy, and sailed westward to take up her weather ship duties once more. After two more such cruises, "Hutchinson" arrived Seattle in early September and decommissioned on 23 September 1946.