December 2013 to February 2014 predictions and seasonal high tide level forecasts

Seasonal forecasts (for next few months) for sea levels and rainfall for Kosrae produced by the Pacific ENSO Applications Centre (PEAC) suggest that:

• Sea-level in the region around Kosrae will tend to be around 4 inches higher than normal for the period December, January and February. This means all tide levels will be pushed up by 4 inches.
• The next three months will see some very high tides experienced on Kosrae. The normally high tides experienced at this time of year will be pushed even higher by about 4 inches due to the higher sea-level anomaly. The largest ides will occur between Monday 2^nd to Thursday 5^th December, Tuesday 31^st December to Saturday 4^th January, around Friday 17^th January, from Wednesday 29 January to Sunday 02 February, and from the 28^th February.
• Kosrae has experienced only about two-thirds of the rainfall it normally experiences over the last few months. For the next three months, rainfall should return to near normal levels or may be slightly wetter than normal.
• No adverse tropical typhoon activity is expected to directly impact Kosrae over the next three months. However, there has been an increase in tropical typhoon activity in the Western North Pacific recently (including Typhoon Haiyan one of the strongest typhoons ever experienced which impacted Yap and Palau and devastated the Philippines). If this activity continues Kosrae could experience some effects such as high swell waves if a cyclone were to form to the north or north-west.

Further information is available from the Pacific ENSO Update newsletter.

The tide calendars for June, July and and August (tide prediction + seasonal sea-level forecast), are now available in both English and Kosraean. These can be downloaded below:

English:  December-2013 |  January 2014 |  February-2014

Kosraean:  Tisampuh-2013  |  Janwuri-2014  |  Febwuri-2014

The three month seasonal forecast of highest daily tides and dates of extremely high tides is only available in English:  Dec-2013-Feb-2014-Seasonal

Copies of the tide calendars can also be obtained from the KIRMA office in Tofol.

In addition to the Pacific ENSO Applications Centre, forecasts of sea level variability over the coming months are also available as an interactive map from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The figure below shows the sea level anomaly over the December to February period (relative to the 1981-2010 average) over the western Pacific. Over the next 3 months, this suggests a sea-level anomaly in the region around Kosrae of between 5 cm to 10 cm (2-4 inches) above the 1981-2010 average (which is a little lower than the PEAC estimate).