The King Tides Are Coming – October 8, 2021

National Weather Forecast

Showers and thunderstorms will be possible on Friday with a couple of areas of low pressure stretching from the Great Lakes to the Southeastern United States. An area of low pressure off the Carolina coast will bring some heavier rain and gusty winds to the region, but tropical development is not expected. Rain, storms, and some mixed-in snow at higher elevations will be possible from Montana into Southern California.

We’re still watching more heavy rain across portions of the Southeast, with rainfall amounts over 3” for some locations by Saturday evening. Heavier rain will also be possible in the Mid-Atlantic, Northern Plains, and north of Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, several inches of snow will fall across portions of the central/northern Rockies.

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The king tides are coming this week

More from Yale Climate Connections: “With the upcoming new moon on Wednesday, October 6, and the moon near perigee (its closest approach to the Earth), much of the southeast U.S. coast will be experiencing “king tides” this week – the highest high tides of the year. In Charleston, South Carolina, the high tide cycles on Friday and Saturday will be around the third highest of the year – just 0.2 feet below the threshold for minor flooding. … Tides should not be exacerbated by this disturbance toward Miami, one of the areas hardest hit by king tides in recent years. Brian McNoldy, of the University of Miami Rosenstiel School, predicts that the area’s king tides may be relatively subdued this year because of lunar orbital factors.”

As Mississippi River Flooding Gets Worse, 100 Mayors Try a New Fix

More from the Wall Street Journal: “Mike Sertle clambered up a steep bank of the Big Muddy River in southern Illinois, whacked thick undergrowth with an oar to clear a path and after a 10-minute hike through the remote forest arrived at his destination: a low berm that could be a key to fighting floods along the Mississippi River. Floodwaters can spill over and get held behind the freshly made earthwork, about 4 feet high, 12 feet wide and 300 yards long, helping to reduce flooding downstream, while also providing new habitat for wildlife, said Mr. Sertle, big rivers biologist with Ducks Unlimited. The hunter-supported conservation group this year formalized a partnership with a group representing some 100 mayors along the Mississippi. Their goal is to restore thousands of acres of wetlands at key points along the river to hold floodwaters and reduce by 10% the chances that a future, higher flood will result in levees being overtopped.”

Climate Scientists Created a SWAT Team for Weather Disasters

More from Bloomberg Green: “When weather disaster strikes, observers near and far ask the same question: Climate change—is it or isn’t it? The simplest answer, yes, lacks specificity. All weather is a joint human-nature venture, because we’ve made the atmosphere hotter than it’s been in 125,000 years. Disasters are nothing new. Assigning blame for them is. A breakthrough out of the U.K. is providing better, more nuanced answers faster with powerful implications for citizens, first responders, and the media. Friederike Otto is at the heart of it. Otto is a climate scientist at Imperial College London and co-leader of World Weather Attribution, a research collaboration that quickly analyzes if or how climate change has made extreme weather somehow worse—more intense, more likely, or deadlier. It’s a small, nimble, and—because of a current lack of funding—mostly volunteer effort assembled to bust science out of the academic quad and let a curious public know when climate change affects them in the most direct and personal way. It’s also beginning to help courts answer the more pointed question: Who, specifically, is responsible?”

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– D.J. Kayser