Morning High Tides

[bluengreen]

These have been killing the 9-5ers game all fall and winter. Can anyone explain why the high tides have been happening primarily in the mornings rather than rotating through a 24 hour period?

I could consult a scientific source, by why do that with access to the erBB braintrust?

 

[Mr Doof]

Tides are cause by gravity due to mass of the moon and sun and are influenced by lots of variables.

Biggest variable is sun/moon rising and setting. Moon has more gravitational effects than the sun by a long shot and retrogrades in relation to a stationary earthling by about 50 minutes a day. More or less, the pattern repeats every two weeks.

So there is a a lump of water moving about 600 miles an hour following the moon, with certain harmonic aspects to it like the nodes of a plucked guitar string, and in short, there is your answer.

Perhaps a visual will help the resonance side of things:




PS

This is me thinking about it. Feel free to show me my errors when you look up the real answer.

 

[bluengreen]

and in short, there is your answer.

But why nearly always in teh morning?

 

[ZZ Soft Top]

Between the AM high tides, storms and general lack of swell, this December has been pretty butt in SoCal.

 

[enframed]

High tides always in the morning in winter, no? They move to evening in summer. Wish Bohter was here to answer this one...

 

[LifeOnMars]

High tides always in the morning in winter, no? They move to evening in summer. Wish Bohter was here to answer this one...

doesn't it change every week?

maybe you're confusing it with the days worth checking having high tides in the AM

 

[bluengreen]

Okay, yeah. Looks like it's rotating through the day over the next two weeks. Maybe some cognitive bias happening on my part. It just FEELS like I've been getting screwed by high tides.

 

[_____]

Why not just surf the high tide spots in the AM?

 

[One-Off]

Always rotating. But a 3.5 foot high tide at 4 am will affect your session differently than a 6.5 high tide at 8am.

I've been having a great winter, not complaining. Must be being retired and going when the tide is medium. Tomorrow around 8:30 or 9.

 

[TeamScam]

It changes almost like clockwork. Storms and bathymetry/landmasses/currents affect it.

There is something called a seiche which is more a thing on lakes or enclosed bodies of water, but there's like a million little seiche-like almost tsunami-like refractions happening in the oceans at any given time.. They are largely noticeable, more than largely, you will never notice these but my point is the myriad of stuff happening on a local and even ocean wide scales at any given time to potentially complicate things.

I think, its like smoke and mirrors illusion if the tides seem to fluctuate from regularity,. Correct me if I'm wrong. Please.

As a kid I used to duck hunt on a tidal river, and the projected times of high tide did fluctuate but generally high tide was an hour and 13 minutes later every day than the day before at least during that duck season on that river.

Tidal waters can get "pent-up" behind a promontory landmass, and then when it gets to a certain height, only then will it continue to spread, which will then affect features down the line in a now, uneven fashion.

I don't really know what I'm talking about, but many of you can think for yourselves. Am I wrong?

 

[Surfdog]

I can remember this extreme morning high tides, afternoon extreme low tides in the winter pretty much like clock-work forever.

Big high tides during very large swells do tremendous coastal damage/erosion. El Nino 82/83 had huge 15-20ft WSW swells coinciding with full moon or new moon king tides of the year. Result was every pier in So Cal damaged or destroyed. Normally protected south facing shores (Malibu, Ventura/SB coasts) had homes wiped off the coast in a few areas and points.

We could have a huge swell, but if tides are not extreme during the event, coastal damage/erosion is minimal if any at all.

My local spot in South Bay would go off on the minus tides during those storms. We lived for those combo big storms and minus tides. Need to not depend on AM surfs in the winter, and focus on the mid-late afternoon minus tides with protected or slack wind windows.

If it's big enough, tides don't usually matter much anyway. It's those small-medium swells that suffer the high tide.

 

[keenfish]

doesn't it change every week?

maybe you're confusing it with the days worth checking having high tides in the AM

I don't know about the morning tides even though they have been like King tides in the AM here the past week.

What I do know is I can't stop looking at your ava. It's mesmerizing.

 

[Senor Sopa]

Rotational Precession. Is the North Pole facing the sun or on the far side. This is what changes the time of day for the extreme tides.

 

[000]

years ago i had a place i could surf alone on hi tide mornings and have fun
nowadays too many kunts found out about it and brought all their friends so its always packed now
this spot cant hold 2 friends comfortably

 

[sdsrfr]

Never thought about harmonics and tides @Mr Doof

Winter starts around king tides. I always thought that was a winter/summer thing and the sun. Fall and spring being the moderate tide seasons.

maybe I’m making this up.

 

[Chocki]

Time and tide wait for no man.

 

[gbg]

These winter high tides kill my motivation to surf. Add in the upper 30/low 40s air temps and I am not interested. I could go surf crowded Blacks or Cliffs mid day but also not interested.

 

[SurfFuerteventura]

Should have titled the thread differently...

"Why surfers worth their salt NEVER hold down a steady 9-5"

 

[One-Off]

When there's a swell, high tide is your friend, at least around my area.

 

[SlicedFeet]

“I’ll take what happens to Surfers when they rely on the internet instead of looking at Analog Tide Calanders which have an uncanny ability to predict preciely what the tides will be every minute for the coming year…..for $1000 Alex”