Got out yesterday morning at dawn. Air temps? In the high forties, pretty cool for Florida. Low tide was scheduled to arrive around 10 AM. So I was hitting the flats at half tide; or so I thought.
Sometimes Wind is more important that Tide
When I got to the ramp, the water was already down much farther than I expected. Granted, the scheduled low was a minus .44 tide. But clearly something was not right. A trip to the flats confirmed it. There was barely a drop of water left. And low tide was 3 hours away.
The wind was 10/12 knots from the northeast. We all know wind can change the time-of-tide and the tidal range. But in shallow water, those effects can be profound. And that is what I saw that morning. A night long north wind had accelerated the ebb, draining the flats. Sometimes wind is more important than time-of-tide.
