Methods

The Meeting House Pond tide station is located at the Nauset Marine East Marina in Orleans, MA. The station has two depth recording probes and a tide staff. The primary probe is a YSI™ 6600V2 multiparameter sonde. A Hobo™ U20 Water Level Logger, installed in 2013, provides a backup in the event of an error with the primary probe. Data displayed and available for download are from the YSI probe.

Tidal data was intermittently recorded beginning in 2005 and 2006. Continuous data recording began in April 2007 after Nauset Beach was breached during a severe northeasterly storm. Since 2007 the tidal probe has been continuously recording except during construction of a new pier (December 2010-March 2011) and due to occasional instrument malfunction. The second water level logger was installed in May 2013 as a backup.

Depth readings are recorded every six minutes and downloaded monthly. Raw data are corrected for local atmospheric pressure and converted to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD88). The full data for a given month are combined starting with the first reading to the last reading of the month (e.g. March 1, 2014 00:00:08 to March 31, 2014 23:54:08).  The data are averaged into monthly tidal summary statistics including Mean Sea Level, Mean High Tide, Mean Low Tide and Mean Tidal Range. For comparison, monthly statistics from Boston Harbor and Chatham Fish Pier* are downloaded from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Tides and Currents website.

* The NOAA tidal station at the Chatham Fish Pier was disabled in January 2015 due to a tidal storm surge. The National Park Service installed a water level logger in March 2015 to record tidal data in the same location.

For questions regarding the Meeting House Pond data contact Dr. Graham Giese.

Download all monthly tidal data here.