What Is a Tide Clock?
RAY: It tells you when it’s high tide. TOM: How does it know? RAY: It’s an analog clock that has only one hand, the hour hand. It runs slower than a normal clock because the tides don’t come at six-hour intervals. High tides are anywhere from 12 hours and two minutes apart to 12 hours and 50 minutes apart. TOM: And you certainly don’t have to change it when they change all the other clocks. RAY: Exactly. Do we have a winner? TOM: The winner this week is Jane Douglas from Carbondale, Colorado. And for having her answer selected at random from among all the correct answers that we got Jane’s going to get a 26-dollar gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division at cartalk.com, where she can get our brand-new CD collection of calls about cars and animals.
For the millions of Americans who live miles from the ocean, what exactly are the tides and why are they important? Tide is defined in the dictionary as the alternate rising and falling of the seas, about every twelve hours, in response to the gravitational attractions of the moon and the sun. There can be a dramatic increase in wave action, the size of waves and the depth of water in shallow areas between high tide and low tide. High tide represents the time period when the water is at its highest level for the approximate twelve hour period while low tide is the opposite.
