Friday, September 10, 2010

Biggest tides of the year today!




Unless you live on the Bay of Fundy you may not be aware that tide heights vary every day. A typical tide chart such as this Dept of Fisheries & Oceans one shows both the time of high and low tide and the height of both high and low tide.

There are many factors that influence tides, in general, and tide height, in particular. Of uppermost importance to tide height is the cycle of the moon, and secondarily, the location of the sun. This is why the new moon & full moon tides are the highest each month: these are called Spring tides (they don't have anything to do with Spring, the season).

Every so often (about every year & a half or more) we also get a rare, unusually high Proxigean Spring tide. This very high tide occurs when the moon is both unusually close to the Earth (at its closest perigee, called the proxigee) and in the new moon phase (when the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth).

Read more about the science of the tides...

Today is the day for the Proxigean tides in Bay of Fundy. Here is the Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, wharf & lighthouse at low tide this morning and high tide this afternoon.

3 comments:

Islandgirl said...

Thanks fo the info... Maybe the wind will pick up and all the loose rock weed will get flushed out to sea today! At least it doesn't smell as bad since it's cooled off!

Unknown said...

great information. we visit nova scotia nearly every year. Last year we toured the bay of fundy. Gorgeous! We are getting ready for our next trip up in 2 weeks! Cape Breton this time around. wonderful blog!!

gayle said...

Several years ago my husband and I stayed in a long cabin in Parrsboro and then stayed all day looking at the Bay of Fundy and the tides go in and out. We had a great time driving around the town too. This day was a one of our best memories of our month long vacation!!