Duxbury Beach, November King Tide

Stephen and Jessica got stuck at work yesterday, but have no fear... Duggan was here! By sheer fate, he happened to be just where I was supposed to be for the high tide. Or, since I was working for a church, maybe it wasn't fate....

Yesterday was a Supermoon King Tide, as you can see on this here chart. That's Boston, but same diff, player. The moon was as close to the Earth as it has been since the 1940s, and that made for huge tides.

Why I hire photographers.... here's me shooting the Supermoon.

Fortunately for coastal residents, the wind hadn't kicked in by the time (11 AM) that the tide was high. This meant "no surf," and took the specter of serious coastal flood damage off of the table. When the wind did perk up, it was between tides.

It never hurts to check the Bluefish River during King Tides. It's a shame that the kids were in school (and that it's November), because this was a prime Jumping Off The Bluefish River Bridge tide. I bet that somebody blew off school in 1943 to jump off that bridge during the last King Tide. A kid wouldn't waste a sick day on a bridge jump these days, what with the Internet and Drugs and Girls and Netflix and all.

I'm not joking when I say that I'd trade my Bourne cottage for this boathouse like thisquick.

If they never invented golf courses and peope just golfed through town (which is how I taught a generation of my students to play bocce in Charlestown, much to the amusement of the old guys who hung around the Navy Yard on sunny days), this would make a tremendous 18th hole..... OK, it would make a tremendous 18th hole if a tavern was within walking distance.

No weathered wood was spared in this shot. That's a mighty long dock, most likely a relic of Duxburys shipbuilding era. There is about 10% of me that imagines that it was built by a fisherman to be just 10-20 feet out of his wife's shouting-out-the-window range. 

It's unusual for the tide to get this close to the road in Duxbury. That's why they put the road there.

Thanks to Debbie D, we get this 3 shot panorama of Bradford Lake in Duxbury. Oh wait, that's not Bradford Lake, it's Bradford's Parking Lot. It;s normally a meadow, until the tide water in the marsh rises above the level of the road between it and Bradford's. If you're considering the purchase of that large house on the left, know that this is what the meadow fills up like without a storm

Supermoon King Tide Brings Coastal Flooding Concerns

by Tristan Umeda, owner of Family Pet & Supply.

We are witnessing a unique lunar event, as the moon is getting as close to us as it has been since the 1940s. You no doubt saw her in the sky last night, and perhaps will see it tonight. They call it a Perigree Moon, and it is the opposite of an Apogee (furthest distance) Moon.

The original inhabitants of the area called it a Beaver Moon, and the weather man calls it a Supermoon. We're in a run of them, having had one in October, and awaiting the one in December. This, however, is what Fred G. Sanford would call "the Big One."

The moon exerts influence on many things. Aboriginals, as we saw, use the moons to know when to check the beaver traps for fur. Werewolves and Witches favor the full moon. Smugglers hate the full moon, with the Outer Cape term "mooncusser" stemming from this professional dislike.

Coastal Residents also are wary of Supermoons. Supermoons produce King Tides, also known locally as Flood Tides.  Flood Tides are the kind of tides where the road or the basement flood without the usual nor'easter storm catalyst.

Well, at least we won't have a storm to worry about, right? Wait... what?

A storm will move up the East Coast at us Tuesday, and this will get that Supermoon/King Tide amped up even more. This won't be a crusher of a storm, with winds more along the 15-30 MPH range than the 35-74 MPH range. Those winds will be sufficient to work up some surf, and the wves will arrive at the worst possible astrological time or astronomical time or whichever one doesn't mean your horoscope.

This isn't a storm that will tear your house down and beat you with it, but it may flood the road or give you a brand new indoor basement pool.

Brant Rock is looking at a 12 foot high tide at 11:13 AM Tuesday. zthe Sandwich end of the Cape Cod Canal gets an 11.3 foot high tide. Scituate gets an 11.8 foot high tide. Barnstable Harbor gets a 12.5 foot tide. Plymouth Harbor gets a 12.8 foot tide. Duxbury Harbor gets a 13 foot tide. Check your high tide here.

We'll be at Duxbury Beach tomorrow to see what's what. We were at Plymouth for high tide today, as you see below. We'll be back with an update tomorrow.

I stole Tristan's pic because this is what my skillz do to a Supermoon, below:

King Tide At Duxbury Beach

We headed out to Duxbury Beach to check out the King Tide. A king tide is when the moon, sun and Earth align. It increases gravitational pull on the ocean, and produces some of the higher tides of the year. We hit town as the king tide was receding... it was only 11.8 feet today, down from 12.8 Wednesday. It'll be down to 10.1 soon.

A tide two feet above normal would be trouble if it went down as a storm hit, which is why October is the start of Nor'easter season. However, Duxbury was No Problemo today. They probably had some spray come over the wall and they did have a Coastal Flood Advisory, but no damage was done today.

Wave good-bye to the King Tide.