What does "two feet" mean in this context?

Asked by susanc (16144

) January 27th, 2010

It’s about the tide. I live in a house on pilings over a little bay. El Nino and unusually low barometric pressure have made recent winter tides, the yearly highest in normal years, even higher. This week they’re saying they could be “two feet higher than predicted”.
Does this mean: two vertical feet higher than the surface of the whole bay?
Or, does it mean: two feet “higher” up the slope of the beach?

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7 Answers

I always took that to mean two feet higher than the surface.

lucillelucillelucille (34325

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That means two vertical feet over the surface of the bay.

stump (3855

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I would assume the same as @lucillelucillelucille

The latter option would be unusual because that distance would be different everywhere along the coast because of the differing slope of the land.

chronohart (279

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Don’t forget to account for the additional height of the surf. Sounds like it could get dicey.

Cruiser (40454

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I think it means two vertical feet higher than the normal high tide.

stranger_in_a_strange_land (18360

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It always—in every case—refers to the height of the water in a vertical column. Always. That’s because every slope of every beach is different, and on most “almost horizontal” beaches, a two-foot difference in reach of the water would be lost in the “noise” of each wave. But a tide level that is two feet higher than normal is going to come “way up” on that beach, and waves added to that (such as occurs with the storm surge from a hurricane or other major storm, for example) is going to add on top of that.

CyanoticWasp (20271

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