Catch the King Tide 2023: All King Tide Data
Loftis, Jon Derek
Loftis, Jon Derek
Abstract
"Catch the King" is a community science GPS flood extent mapping effort centered in Tidewater Virginia, USA, that seeks to map the King Tide's maximum inundation extent with the goal of validating and improving inundation prediction models like the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s Tidewatch Map (https://cmap2.vims.edu/SCHISM/TidewatchViewer.html). This 36-hour storm tide inundation forecast model is based on the Center for Coastal Resources Management’s open-source SCHISM hydrodynamic model’s operational outputs, updated every 12 hours at noon and midnight (EST). Timestamped GPS-reported high water marks were collected by volunteers to effectively trace the high water line by pressing the 'Save Data' button in the free Sea Level Rise mobile app (available on iOS and Android) in regular intervals along the water's edge. These inundation measurements were collected over the weekend of October 27-29, 2023, during some of the highest astronomical tides of the year, which were harmonically forecasted to be 3.26-3.48 ft. above MLLW at Sewells Point in Norfolk, VA, as the king tide took place at many different times at coastal places throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia's coastal region. The water levels for Catch the King 2023 were exactly what was predicted by VIMS' predictive models, in terms of the king tide weekend's flooding being exclusively the result of the astronomical tide (bereft wind or rain complications). It's important to remember that while it might feel underwhelming to map minimal inundation conditions (relative to previous years, which have included more substantial flooding due to significant wind and rain), the inundation impact of the king tide alone is the ideal benchmark that we are aiming to map each year through Catch the King. Catch the King 2023 had over 120 volunteers mapping inundation to collect over 13,500 GPS-reported high water marks via the free Sea Level Rise mobile application. Additionally, we collected even more tidal inundation data during the summer and fall (including September's "wet run" tides and rainfall event and Tropical Storm Ophelia) in more new places across VA's Coastal Plain that we've never mapped before. Thank you to Catch the King’s many tide mappers for their vigilance in helping us map 2023’s king tide in Virginia’s coastal communities!
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Date
2023-10-29
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Keywords
Sea Level Rise, Tides, Flooding, Virginia, Citizen Science, Community Science, Inundation Data
Citation
Loftis, Jon Derek, "Catch the King Tide 2023: All King Tide Data" (2023). Data. William & Mary. https://doi.org/10.25773/e4hr-7v73
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Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Center for Coastal Resources Management (CCRM)
Center for Coastal Resources Management (CCRM)
DOI
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.25773/e4hr-7v73" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.25773/e4hr-7v73</a></p>