Actual Tide Height

[FlyingSpud]

Is there anywhere to find out what the actual tide height was on a given day? I ask as last night coming back into the Thames Estuary, there seemed a lot less water than predicted, and I was interested to see if this was the case, or if it was just me.

 

[tillergirl]

Listen to 69. Thames VTS broadcast tide heighs at four locations usully starting with Walton. Can include Margate, Southend and Shivering Sands. Broadcast on 69 is 15 minutes to and 15 minutes past the hour, preceded by three beeps. Broadcast can be delayed a few minutes if there is lie radio traffic. If you have t'internet connection you can call up live tide data on the PLA website

 

[Evadne]

Is there anywhere to find out what the actual tide height was on a given day? I ask as last night coming back into the Thames Estuary, there seemed a lot less water than predicted, and I was interested to see if this was the case, or if it was just me.

Tidal data is published by the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory. If you follow the link below, you'll find the pages from which everything that is available, is available. The format is not user friendly, so you'll probably spend a few happy hours trying to translate it into meaningful numbers.

http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/datainfo/

 

[FlyingSpud]

I missed the radio heights. Low water was pretty low anyway last night, predicted 0.2 over datum, but I seemed to be reading about 0.5 below datum. Not sure I have ever seen so much of the Montgomery above the water (was rather creepy in the dark, to be honest).
I was just nosy really, wondered what the actual height was.

 

[Leighb]

I have had a look at the Proudman Oceanographic Lab data for the Thames area and there was no significant tidal surge+ or - over the past few days.

The low tides on Sat/Sun evenings were in any case the lowest this year I think.

 

[VicS]

Sheerness is I think the only data for the thames estuary (but thats not a million miles from the Montgomery)

Actal heights have been pretty close to predictions recently:

http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/sadata_tgi_ntslf_v2.php?code=Sheerness&span=2

 

[FlyingSpud]

Well done for sorting that out As Evadne predicted, I was not finding the site easy to navigate

Must be me then.

I was coming out of the Thames and turning ‘round the corner’ into the Medway. For those who do not know the area, it is a bit of a ‘U’ turn, but a sand bank runs out from the tip of the U some way, with the wreck of the Richard Montgomery on the tip of the sand bank, so to speak.

Normally you can cut across the sand bank inside the Montgomery, even at low water, but last night as I started to cross the depth seemed much lower than I expected, even allowing for the low tide, and to be honest I lost my nerve, backed off and went all the way around the Montgomery.

Oh well, better safe than sorry