The Dangerous Relationship Between Hurricanes and the Moon
As Hurricane Florence makes landfall, scientist eyes are looking to the skies
It may not be visible on the sodden Eastern Seaboard, but far above Hurricane Florence’s lashing winds and rain, the crescent moon is waxing—and that’s bad news for flooding along the Carolina coast.
Through its gravitational tug, the moon is the primary driver of the Earth’s tides—the daily rising and sinking of the oceans and lakes. High tides are higher than usual in the days around a new or full moon. As wind and rain from Hurricane Florence began pelting North Carolina, the moon’s cycle was just four days old, which means higher tides than average for America’s eastern shores. It also means the storm tide—the term for rising waves brought on by rainfall and surging seawater—will be higher too.
“If you could choose when to get hit by a hurricane, you would want it to be at a low tide,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, who explained that to reduce the storm tide as much as possible, you want hurricanes to hit—if they must—during the first quarter or third quarter moon, “as far opposite of a new or full moon as you can get,” he said. Unfortunately, the recent new moon is still influencing tides in the Carolinas and in the Miami…
