Even more flooding in Garden City?
If you live in or near Garden City, you are well aware that the streets have flooded for the past 3 nights (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday), and with tidal trends today (Wednesday) running about a foot above lunar tide predictions, they will likely flood one more time tonight before the moon begins to wax and tides begin to slowly drop. High tide tonight at Springmaid Pier is at 9:38 and tonight's high tide will be around 7.5 feet which compares to almost 8 feet the past 2 nights. The marshes begin to spill into the streets at about 7.0 feet. The reason can be found below in my post from yesterday.
For the past 2 evenings, the streets of Garden City have filled with water like clockwork around high tide. The reason is two fold.
First, the astronomical tides are higher than at other times of the month and other times of the year due to the new moon and the way the sun, earth and moon are lined up. As you probably know, the tides are affected the gravitational pull of the moon as well as that of the sun. Sometimes the moon and sun are playing tug of war of sorts and tidal levels are very low. However, at other times like the present, the sun, moon and earth are lined up in such as way that the moon and sun's gravitational fields are working together against the earth's own gravity field. This combined force pulls upward on the oceans causing water levels to be higher than at other times of the year. This effect is further enhanced by the lunar cycle being in the new moon phase.
However, there is only one time of the year (usually late Fall) that the above is enough to cause street flooding in Garden City. The other contributor to this week's abnormally high high tides is related to the weather in the form of an area of low pressure over the western Atlantic. To understand this, think about the concept of pressure. If you apply pressure to a cut, what are you doing? You're pushing down on your wound. The same is true about pressure as it relates to the weather. An area of low pressure over the ocean applies less pressure on the water than an area of high pressure. This allows the water level of the ocean in the vicinity of that low pressure to rise.
Now add in the effects of the sun and moon described earlier and you have one very high, high tide. Since the elevation of Garden city at its lowest point is only 7 feet above sea level, anytime the total tidal level taking weather and astronomy into account reaches 7 feet or more, the streets of Garden City fill up like a basin. Here's a link to the 2009 Tide Table for Springmaid Pier which is about 45 minutes ahead of Garden City on average.
One more thing before I go, if you happen to see flooding tonight, email me a digital picture so I can include it on the morning news between 5 and 7AM!! It's .
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on 06/23 at 11:45 AM
