NEW: King Tide Hits RI Tonight With Abnormally High Tides
Monday, June 24, 2013
It’s king tide season in Rhode Island and tonight will bring another abnormally high tide to our coastline.
Newport saw a steady increase in tides throughout last week, increasing from 3.3 ft on Saturday June 15th to 5 ft this past Saturday.
These unusually large tides, or “king tides” as they are more colloquially called, occur approximately three times a year when the full moon is aligned with the sun. During these few months, the highest tides exceed the typical high tides for three or four days.
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U.S. Harbors Rhode Island has predicted similarly high tides from July 21st to July 23rd and again from August 20th to 22nd, with the arrival of another full moon. By September and October, the expected increase in tides that accompany the full moon will be less marked, reaching between 4 and 4.6 feet.
Last year, king tides hit Newport in May, June, and July, reaching, as with this year, a maximum of 5.1 ft. As with typical tides, the size of king tides can be further augmented by other weather patterns, causing them to be particularly dangerous.
King tides have begun to be used as a means of educating people about the effects of climate change, as their exceptional height mirrors the effect rising sea levels may have on communities in the future A campaign called the King Tide Photo Initiative encourages the public to photograph their community during these periods of exceptionally high tides and post them online for others to see. Begun in 2009 in Australia, this has since been established in Washington State and California.