How this supermoon really affects our tides

ORLANDO, Fla. – Did you know the moon is actually what dictates our tides? The water does not just rise and fall at different parts of the day and night.

Believe it or not, if you weren’t already aware, the moons GRAVITY and distance from Earth is what creates our high and low tides.

Everything in our solar system is tethered by the force of gravity. The planets orbiting the sun because of its strong gravitational pull. The order with which the planets orbit the sun is also dictated by the force of gravity; we didn’t simply wind up as the third planet from the sun but rather, the Earth was hooked by the sun many millennium ago because of our precise distance from the sun’s core.

The moon then rotates around the Earth’s own gravity field. Finally, you probably guessed it, the moon has its own force of gravity, despite being much smaller than Earth.

So, as the moon revolves around Earth, depending on its position then determines whether a certain hemisphere or region experiences a high or low tide. It’s similar to that of a storm surge within a hurricane. Hurricane storm surge, or water rise, is dictated by the low pressure center. In regards to the moon however, it’s all simply the gravitational pull that the moon does impose on our surface.

When the moon is at the right spot, right angle, right position, the water will rise some being pulled upward by the moon’s gravity field. After passing this particular frame, the water levels drop. That’s the difference between high and low tide.

Where does the supermoon come into play? Well, the reason we call it a supermoon, for starters, is because it is the point in time where the Earth and moon are closest together. It is a phase called “perigee.” This makes the moon look much bigger than we typically can view it from where we stand.

If you cycle back to the discussion above regarding the moon’s field of gravity impacting water levels on Earth, you can probably put the context clues together. If the moon is at its closest to our planet, the force of gravity will be stronger. As a result, water levels will actually rise higher than typically and drop further as we cycle tides. High tide could be much higher than we usually observe, and low tide much lower.

This could be detrimental to those still recovering along our west coast from Helene and Milton alike, where coastal flooding was vicious alongside the ocean pushing more water into certain rivers. See below for a few of our high and low tides forecast through the day Thursday.