Supermoon Tide

I was neck deep in business, so I stayed in my neighborhood for the Supermoon tide.

I live on a Bay side beach, just east of a tiny, nameless stream. 

I grew up on a rather storm-tossed beach, so it is nice to live somewhere with a 3 foot high tide rather than an 11 foot high tide. Not that Buttermilk Bay isn't trying hard during the Supermoon, of course...

Our nameless stream overflowed her banks and began to run wild across the village. OK, it made a puddle. I was about 90 minutes after high tide.

At high tide at 11 PM, it managed to soak a road.

This is the post-edit shot. You should have seen how useless the original was.

The culprit.

Surf Check: South Shore, Saturday

The storm from Friday was still touching us on Saturday morning. We headed out to investigate. 

We started in Hull.

Why the Hull not?

The ocean started getting after us, so we fled to Cohasset.

Cohasset gets the short stick in our Surf Check series. This is mostly because Cohasset is one of those South Shore towns where you're 15 minutes from the next town. 15 minutes is a lifetime when everyone has high tide at the same time. By contrast, I can get from where I shoot in Marshfield to where I shoot in Duxbury in 10 minutes, and that includes stopping for breakfast.

We'll show Cohasset more love in the future.

Next stop, Scituate.

We did a different part of Scituate yesterday, so today we headed over to Old Scituate Light.

We hit Scituate at high tide.

Sea spray is essential if you want your house to look nautical.

Heading south, into Marshfield.

I think we're in Fieldston here, village boundaries are sort of funny.

We were in Ocean Bluff yesterday, so we tried a different neighborhood.

We were about a half hour after high tide.

We went from Vegas to Duxbury Beach.

It's never good when the interior streets are flooded.

...or when that walkway is supposed to be paved rather than beachy.

We were at the DBC almost an hour after high tide, but I needed a linguica bagel and, goddamnit, I had one.

It's tough to see, but the waves were undermining the seawall here.

The tide tonight could also be entertaining. If you need laughs, watch Stephen get soaked, below:

Tides later this week will be in the 11 foot range, so we were lucky with the timing of this storm.

We're finishing up in Plymouth.

Manomet is about where Nor'easter Alley ends, although you could end It in Duxbury or stretch it to Sandwich if you wanted.

See you next time!

Surf Check: South Shore, Cape Cod

A storm offshore stirred up the surf for Massachusetts. 

We checked Sagamore Beach out Thursday night..

We hit Scituate an hour before high tide on Friday morning.

The gods were not pleaed with Scituate, as she was taking heavy hits. Scituate an hour before high tide was as bad as Marshfield directly at high tide.

I will eventually do a full high tide at Scituate, but today we were shootin' and scootin'.

Next stop, Marshfield.

We were in Vegas at high tide.

I actually stayed dry on this one, but visibility was reduced to 25 feet.

Marshfield is always good in storms, be it Ocean Bluff or Brant Rock.

I actually got sea-sprayed through an open window in Vegas today.

We stopped at The Coffee Shack for a linguica bagel, then it was off to the next stop...

Duxbury!

Duck Town is where I try to end up for high tide. I can park on a hill, and I can hide behind someone's shed when I shoot. I didn't even try to get down to Ocean Road North.

Mostly because stuff like that was happening on Ocean Road North.

As we mentioned in a prior article, we were very lucky that this storm didn't arrive a week later, when we have 11 foot tides.

The DBC is the southern anchor of Nor'easter Alley, a stretch of coastline running from Duxbury to Hull.

The blocker in the seawall opening held up, but plenty of water splashed over the wall.

Wetted

I was soaked to the bone when I was in Scituate, which is why none of the Scituate pics are from closer than 25 feet from the seawall. Duxbury was no problem.

There were some genuinely large waves 100 yards offshore, but we had a long ride to our next vantage point...

Eastham!

Fortunately for storm chaser types, Nauset Light Beach had a high tide 2 hours later than Brant Rock. A well motivated crew can reach both at the right time.

The Outer Cape sees larger waves than a Scituate or a Hull does. It's just very sand-duney out there, and people don't build on the waterline as much. Duxbury has waves breaking on houses, so we usually concentrate our photographic firepower on the South Shore. Still, the Cape rocks.

Coastal Flooding Friday Morning

A powerful storm offshore will graze Massachusetts on Friday morning, bringing us strong winds, heavy rain and churning surf.

There is a Coastal Flood Watch for Eastern Massachusetts on Friday morning. There's also a Storm Watch for all you sea people.

The rain should start for real Thursday night, and it should be pouring Friday morning. The winds will be onshore Friday during high tide, and minor to moderate coastal flooding could occur.

We're actually catching a break from the Storm Gods. Using Brant Rock as an example, we have a 9.5 foot tide on Friday morning. Saturday also has a similar tide.

Sunday the 5th has a 10 foot morning high tide, Monday has both morning and evening tides over 10 feet, and April 15th will be the next day where there isn't a 10 foot high tide.

We have a 4 day run where there are 11 foot morning high tides, brought to us by the full moon. It would be what coastal residents call Problematic if a storm struck with tides at that height.

This lunar stuff is why the more savvy coastal residents do no yard repairs until late April or even early May.

We'll have our people out for some storm pics. We'll be safe from the Coronavirus thanks to the Greater Fool Theory.

While we should be hiding at home, where we are going will be flooding. Plenty of fools will be at Wal-Mart, coughing plague onto each other. We shall be the Greater Fools, and Fools of our caliber generally do our dirt by our lonesome.