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Online source of tidal differences? (for small tide stations compared to Boston or Portland, e.g.)


Dan Foster

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Tide and current data for complex river/harbor/estuary interactions like the Portsmouth, NH area drive me nuts. NOAA gives a webpage for each tide or current station, but there's no "big picture" that shows how high tide at various points up the Piscataqua and into Great Bay lags the high tide at the entrance to Portsmouth Harbor. Do you have a resource you use for these kinds of questions?

After hours of reverse googling, I managed to find almost exactly what I was looking for, 300 pages into NOAA's Tide Tables - 2019 East Coast of North and South America Including Greenland

Here's a PDF with just the four relevant pages for our area, showing the lag in high and low tides for subordinate tide stations relative to the reference station. Maine Tidal Differences.pdf

Have any of you found a more accessible source for this information? I'm currently interested in the Portsmouth/Piscataqua region, but I'd really like a general solution that covers the entire coastline.

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Ah, one of my favorite tomes.  Tides and Currents in Portsmouth Harbor, A. J. Hoskinson, US Coast and Geodetic Survey Special Publication No. 150, 1929

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b72168;view=1up;seq=5

Should be at https://library.noaa.gov/Collections/Digital-Collections/USCGS-Special-Pubs , but the links from there aren't working now.  There are similar pubs for other areas, all about as old.

Thanks for finding those tide tables. Hadn't found that before, and it's just what I need for something right now... 

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Dan:

 

You might find the Tidelog publication (available at many chandleries) helpful as it contains similar charts for tide levels and currents allowing you to get a sense of how those items vary from certain stations.

That said, the Portsmouth area can be a puzzle palace and time on the water there is very beneficial along with published data.

 

Ed Lawson

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Just as an example of how this data could be displayed in a useful form, here's a website that lets you drag a slider to see the currents ebb and flow around Puget Sound. Move the map a little to the north and look at the current in Deception Pass!

http://www.deepzoom.com

He plots the tide and current stations for our area, but the current slider doesn't work here. I would love to see this visualization for the Piscataqua.

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