West Seattle water and sky: Extreme tides, and ‘supermoon’

A few bonus reasons to go outside the next several days/nights … very low and very high tides, plus the “supermoon”! The latter arrives at moonrise Saturday evening – Space.com has details. And along with this month’s full moon come some very high and very low tides. Today’s low tide at midmorning – when we took the cameraphone photo above, during a brief Alki visit – was a modestly low minus tide, but as our favorite monthly tide table shows, the lows get lower over the next few days, bottoming out at -3.4 just after noon on Monday (one of the lowest daytime low tides of the year). At the same time, the high tides are higher than usual, topping out at 12 feet (or slightly past that) Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evenings.

SIDE NOTE: Any time you are interested in sunrise/set, moonrise/set, and tide information, that’s part of what we provide (automated so you can trust it’s always updated) on the WSB Weather page – follow that link OR click the “Weather” tab below the header on any WSB page.

7 Replies to "West Seattle water and sky: Extreme tides, and 'supermoon'"

  • Visitor May 4, 2012 (3:57 pm)

    Seattle Volunteer Naturalists are providing a free low tide walk at Me Kwa Mooks beach on Sunday May 6 at 10:15am. Please call 206-386-4337 to register.

  • smokeycretin9 May 4, 2012 (6:08 pm)

    Neil deGrasse Tyson – “Moon Lunacy strikes again: The impending Supermoon is to an average full Moon what a 16″ Pizza is to a 15″ Pizza. So chillax.”

  • CD May 4, 2012 (10:07 pm)

    So I am having my last Beach Naturalist training on Sunday..so look for us to answer questions and be available for those low tides..Sun,.Mon, Tues and at least Wed! Then next 2 months more low tides!! Please go to Seattle Aquarium website to find out when low tides are and when to come down to get some good education about our amazing Sound! Look for us in our vests if you find something during low tide that you want to learn about. We are at multiple beaches during the summer and I am at Seahust this comming Tuesday with other BN’s as well as the first week of June! Hope to see you there to explore and find some great creatures and plants that you only get to see during these low tides!!!

  • DF May 5, 2012 (8:24 am)

    CD have you folks with the beach naturalist ever considered bringing sandwich board signs along with your groups visits to our shorelines which announce to beach users the negative effect dogs can have upon sealife exposed during low tides? I believe we lack signage. What are thoughts? Our your groups thoughts upon this? Thank you.

  • CD May 5, 2012 (9:04 pm)

    Hello DF! As we all know as dog friendly as Seattle is, we are lacking swimming areas for our four legged companions. My role as a BN is not to police the beach. We will see this as well as people taking shells, seaweed, or even throwing a seastar into the water and use it as an opportunity to educate as to why these actions may not be ideal to our critters and beaches. I myself swim my dogs at this beach but only during high tide, as I am concerned for both the sea critters and the chance that my dog steps on an angry crab or comes across a jelly that can sting! I am encouraged to talk to people if I feel I am not going to make the problem worse. Sometimes you catch more flies with honey!! Going during low tide gives you the chance as I did today to talk with another beach lover how much we love bringing our dogs but how thankful we were that we had chosen to leave them home this time to be able to get to pay attention to all the cool things below us our dogs would distract us from! A sign would
    (I’m sure) would need to be placed by the parks people. Thanks for the question and I hope to see you at low tide.

  • DF May 5, 2012 (10:55 pm)

    “You are sure that a sign would have to be put there by parks dept. “. Ok. Well my hope is CD that you bring this up with fellow beach naturalists. Because the low tides DO bring a lot of people to our shorelines. We have to protect our environment and be proactive. I will continue with it. My suggestion simply came from the fact that you folks will be regularily present at the beach at these popular times. Take Care

  • CD May 6, 2012 (10:08 pm)

    I guess my comment should have been with “I would guess” then I am sure. My intentions were not to upset or disagree with you. I am a volunteer not an employee of the aquarium or the parks dept. So like I said if the opportunity arises to speak to this problem then I am comfortable to have a convo with any person, however being a volunteer I am encouraged to talk to my captain and let them handle the problem…i feel as if you thought I was blowing you off when I explained as well as I could through this system what we are instructed to do..your response made me wish I hadn’t said anything at all. And if you want to speak to protecting the environment there are a lot of things (besides loose dogs) that go on at Seahurst ( and in our daily lives not at the beach )that are just as harmful.. For example taking shells, harvesting seaweed, digging up clams, driving our cars( you’ve heard of watershed right?) etc etc…and we do talk about this topic almost everytime we meet. And if you have any experience with people in general you might know that people dont like being told what to do or not do as a whole and if we were to tell every person that had a dog off leash to leash up then my job (volunteer job) would be animal control not Beach Naturalist!

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