Friday, January 29, 2010

In the Matter of Tides

Cliff Mass had a fairly astonishing post earlier this week, Inversions and Inverse Barometers. During that ferocious low pressure off the coast that caused all the storms in Southern California etc., what we had here were tides up to two feet higher than predicted. Tides, not storm waves. Without thinking about it, and despite knowing about storm surges in general, I'd thought that tide tables were sort of like the laws of physics. A description of immutable fact, not a prediction... Here's the key chart he gave us, showing the week of high difference between observed and predicted water levels at Neah Bay.

What is co-ops.nos.noaa.gov ? I was out at Rialto Beach on the 16th and the 23rd. Can I make it show me the same information for La Push... Yikes. Yes, and look. No wonder I encountered too much water to beach-walk when it was still only halfway between high and low on the 16th! Oh co-ops.nos.noaa.gov, you are my new favorite toy.

Adjourning to the couch now with the 2010 TideLog that KF sent me, to try to learn some more.

Unless I decide to go to the beach.

1 comment:

Sky said...

glad you are enjoying the new toy.

"...unless i decide to go to the beach." hahahaha - yes, that beachcomber would be YOU, my dear! ;)) you had me laughing aloud when i got to that last sentence.