I think that’s possible but thankfully the tides are in a “helpful” phase to prevent the worst of the coastal flooding.
Originally Posted by: doctormog
Yes, the tides are mostly controlled by the Moon's gravitational pull, and also to a lesser extent by the Sun. This results in the highest tides occuring when the Sun and Moon along with the Earth form a straight line and that happens whenever we have either a Full Moon or a New Moon since the Sun and Moon and pulling together on the Earth's surface at those times, causing those forces to add up.
Those are known as spring tides, although that term has nothing to do with the season which is known as spring and comes from how much quicker the tides goes in and out at those time. The distance between the Earth and the Moon also affects things, so spring tides are even higher still if the Moon is relatively close to the Earth when we get a spring tide, due to the Moon's gravitional pull being that much stronger.
In a way, we are lucky because if this upcoming weather setup had occured about a week later than when it is actually happening, this would have concided with the New Moon which is coming up on 4 December 2021. That will be a super New Moon with the Moon being relatively close to us, and that is when we tend to get the highest spring tides of the entire year.
This means that if we had this type of weather coming up then, there would have been some real concerns about the possibilities of coastal flooding from that as a result.
However, the Moon will be at its Last Quarter on Saturday 27 November 2021 and when the Moon is at it First or Last Quarter (i.e. when it appears in the sky from here as a semi-circle with exactly half of its visible disk lit up), the gravititational pull of the Moon is always at its minimum due to the Sun and Moon being at right angles to the Earth and therefore, pulling against each other rather. which then has the effect of causing each of those forces to partially cancel the other one out.
Those tides are known as neap tides and although wave overtopping can' never be ruled out even with that, this means that the risk of that happening is kept to a minimum. Since that will be the situation when we see the worst effects from Storm Arwen, that is why the tides will actually be in a "helpful" state for that.
Edited by user
25 November 2021 18:26:15
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Reason: Not specified
The north of Edinburgh, usually always missing out on snow events which occur not just within the rest of Scotland or the UK, but also within the rest of Edinburgh.