What’s the moon phase today?
Those of you with an interest in tide times will definitely have asked this question. And now thanks to some great feedback from Tidey customers, and some technical work behind the scenes, Tidey can tell you the phase of the moon in real-time. The bottom row of Tidey can show the moon’s phases, while the top continues displaying the tide times for your favourite beach. If you have a Tidey you can log into Tidey Cloud and switch the moon feature on or off – it’s off by default.
Spring tides, neap tides and everything in-between
A spring tide—otherwise known as a “King Tide”—is the ‘springing forth’ of the tide during a new and a full moon.
A neap tide—seven days after the spring tide—is the period of moderate tides when the sun and moon are at right angles to each other.
Why are Spring or Neap tides important?
Full moon, half moon and new moon, are key moments in the tide cycle – when it’s a full or new moon the tide is at its most extreme – the ‘Spring Tide’, means the tidal highs and lows are at their peak. Low tide will be very low and high tide will be very high.
When there is a half moon, waxing or waning, the tidal highs and lows are lessened – the ‘Neap Tide’ as it’s known, means that the differences of height that the tide has are at their least extreme.
This neap tide, spring tide effect differs greatly from coastal location to coastal location, for example the beach near Tidey HQ, Brighton UK has a very big tidal range, so swimming, surfing or even walking along the beach are greatly impacted by the moon phase. In places like Bali’s west-coast (our favourite surf spot) the tidal extremes are far less pronounced.
If you want your Tidey to display the moon (which will allow you to know if its a Spring or Neap tide) then log onto https://cloud.tidey.co with your username and password and switch on the “display moon” button. Your Tidey will then show the moon at the bottom of the display, the tide height and direction will continue to display on the top 7 lines of the Tidey.
Tidey is a tide clock that’s hand-made with love in Brighton, UK. You can shop Tidey here >