Surf Check: Plymouth, Bourne, Sandwich

A nor'easter was offshore, sending some surf back at us. We got out to some local beaches to see what was what.

The White Cliffs in Plymouth, facing Bourne and Sandwich.

The wind had shifted to NNW by high tide, so the coastal flood threat was neutralized. 

The waves were still nice.

This isn't bad for Sagamore Beach, which has smaller waves than a nor'easter heavyweight like Duxbury or Marsh Vegas.

My drinking days have passed, but I do enjoy shooting from The Drunken Seal.

Whale of a time!.

Try some of that Under The Boardwalk stuff in Sandwich...

Aiming towards Barnstable...

This was a weak storm, and I saw no structural damage at any beach that I visited.

March Supermoon Storm Tide, Marshfield and Duxbury

Supermoon nor'easter? You know we're sending a crew out!

Marshfield and Duxbury were Poseidon's canvas on Friday.

Deluxebury and Vegas got off easily. The storm went south to north through the center of SE Massachusetts. We didn't spend much time in her strongest wind field. The east winds came at low tide, and were north winds at high tide. This knocked the seas down some, saving the area from more dangerous surf.

Supermoon tides, which are the tides when the moon makes her closest approach to us (the Moon has an egg shaped orbit, and distances from Earth vary), are dangerous. If a storm is behind them, the danger is exponentially increased.

The north wind is cool because I can stand pretty much right on the seawall and the spray is blown away from me. I was dry for almost all of this assignment.

The lessened wind/wave interaction was the difference between waves smashing the wall and waves smashing the houses. A supermoon high tide is usually all of the head start that a damaging storm needs.

A good day not to go fishing. Just kidding, every day is a good day to go fishing. Consider the alternatives...

It would be funny if the fisherman stayed home, only to have the ocean come to him.

Gurnet Road floods during supermoon tides even without a storm, although that only stops some people.

Duxbury Proper doesn't flood much, but supermoon tides get it done on Washington Street...

...and Powder Point.

Powder Point doesn't get waves, however... this is why the townspeople rightly voted for seawall repairs on the barrier beach.

Otherwise....

We usually add Hull or Scituate into these articles, but I instead used the travel time to get a linguica bagel from The Coffee Shack in Green Harbor. I do not regret this decision.

Duxbury's seawall repairs held up, although I left before the tide went out.

Overall, it was a good show. No major damage anywhere I saw...

We may even have ended with the last snow of the season, below...

Surf Check, South Shore, 1/20/19

As a big Nor'easter hit us, we sent shutterbugs out to the beaches to see what was up with Mother Ocean.

It was a snowstorm for many, but we got off the highway in Hingham looking for waves.

...which took us straight to Hull! 

The surf was up in Hull, although we were there about 90 minutes before high tide. It was also pouring, so we shot through the Windows.

From there, we headed into Scituate.

You could spend a whole storm in Scituate and maybe someday we will, but we just headed down the Driftway on Sunday.

Scituate, which isn't that far from Hingham, had much less snow.

Our next stop was Marshfield.

Vegas, like Scituate, has a hundred different places one could watch a storm from, but we sort of town-hop when we do Surf Check. Our coverage, like they say about how history teachers work, is miles wide and inches deep.

The Brant Rock/Ocean Bluff section is great to shoot storms from, because you get the tower in the background... a tower which we managed to obscure.

Green Harbor is also fun to shoot at, because you can use the curve of the beach to sort of get behind the waves... albeit from a great distance.

I don't know if they still call it Burke's Beach, but it's a good spot.

We're in Green Harbor, taking multiple shots of Green Harbor taking multiple shots.

Heading south to Duxbury for the next video...

Duxbury is a must-stop for any storm chaser, because it is where you stand the best chance of seeing a seawall collapse.

This rock wall is a private citizen's work. 

I literally just finished clearing that yard of rocks.

All storms are a little scary, but this one wasn't so bad. The wind was blowing across the waves, instead of behind them.

Duxbury suffered mightily last winter, and residents there are bracing for another winter of storms.

Nor'easter season has a February through April peak.

Most people there don't even consider yard repairs until late April.

...lest another one of these storms arrives.

It could have been worse, as the storm hit during a full moon. It trapped us on Cable Hill for an hour after high tide, Which is why this article doesn't have Plymouth, Bourne, Sandwich and Eastham sections.

The full moon means higher tides, which pushes the marsh water over the road. Try to avoid driving through knee-deep salt water, kids.

Sea ice (technically marsh ice) was pushed across Gurnet Road by the flood tide.

See you for the next storm!