Practically Classics Forum

Ah yes, I should have guessed. Though I'd sooner blame the baby Jesus 'cos he isn't a member of the largely American boombox forum I so enjoy using.

Luxobarge wrote:

JPB wrote:from freakishly big neap tides

Neap tides are never big. Spring tides are though.....

Except this neap tide - the spring tide was about a fortnight ago! A least that's what an "expert" said on the Beeb news. Apparently, there's a "freak" tide every seven years (which kinda fits for us); the way the wind and rain came at peak of the neap tide, made it a frekishly big tide - let alone a neap tide!

Mind you, I've lived here for thirty years and, eleven years before we moved, I lived further along the Solway for eleven years and I still get the tides wrong! I thought the spring tide (the water springs up) was a fortnight ago and, as it was the New Moon, the tide wouldn't be as high on Friday - until I saw the rain and heard the wind!

Tecnically (and I'm being uber-pedantic here) that isn't a tide, it's a surge. A tide, whether neap or spring will always be at a specific predictable height at any given point, and therefore neap tides are always smaller than springs etc. However, a strong wind blowing for a long time in a specific direction can "heap up " the sea, and sometimes this can raise the level higher than the difference between a neap and a spring tide. It's still a surge though, and not a tide - there's no such thing as a "freak" tide, but there are other conditions that can raise sea levels at certain places that could be termed as freakish - they're just not technically "tides".

[/pedant]

That's good stuff. Pedanticism rocks!

OK, so surges can be managed with regulators and capacitors. Has anyone got a circuit diagram of the Sea please?

[/facetious baldy bloke]

JPB wrote: Pedanticism rocks!

Pedantry, surely......

You set 'em up, I'll knock 'em down.... Lol

Yep, but funnily enough, there are some google hits for my way of saying it which is really quite a shame as I was so sure I'd invented a new word extension.