Tidal Currents of the North Sea

Extract

In the article “Tides” in the Encyclopœdia Britannica, Professor George Darwin, quoting Sir George B. Airy, remarks that the tides of the North Sea present a very remarkable peculiarity. Along the eastern coast of England as far as the mouth of the Thames, the tide-wave, coming from the Atlantic round the Orkney Islands, flows towards the south. Thus, on a certain day, it is high water in the Moray Firth at 11 a.m., at Berwick at 2 p.m., at Flamborough Head at 5 p.m., and so on to the entrance to the Thames. Thus, on the day supposed, it will be high water off the Thames at 11 p.m., the tide having travelled in twelve hours from the Moray Firth.

It is further stated that the North Sea is considerably deeper on the English side than on the German side; so much so, that the tide-wave coming from the north runs into a deep bay of deep water, bounded on the west side by the Scottish and English coasts as far as Newcastle, and on the east side by the great Dogger Bank. As far as the latitude of Hull, the English side is still the deep one; and though a species of channel through the shoal there allows an opening to the east, yet immediately on the south of it is the Wells Bank, which again contracts the deep channel to the English side.

It is not stated here that the deeper water of the North Sea close to the Scottish and English coasts determines the course of the southward tidal flow to be close to these coasts; but for that course taken, no other cause is suggested.