Catch the King
...the largest environmental survey on the planet
In its inaugural year, Catch the King garnered the support of 722 individual volunteers who directly surveyed 59,718 GPS-reported high water marks during a king tide flood event over 6 hours on Nov. 5, 2017, across the U.S. East Coast. As a result, the effort was recognized by Guinness World Records for having the most contributions to an environmental survey. This year, we hope to expand to cover new areas in Hampton Roads while surveying places throughout tidewater Virginia, as VIMS' Center for Coastal Resources Management has expanded their Tidewatch 36-hr storm tide forecast map to cover all of coastal Virginia in early 2019! Your data from Catch the King helped validate the accuracy of this model in 2017 and 2018 in Hampton Roads sufficiently to release the model's forecasts throughout the Coastal Commonwealth in 2019 and beyond!
In 2019, Catch the King will take place on October 27 during one of the highest astronomical tides of the year. Leading up to then, we are looking to map three of the highest astronomical tides of the year, occurring at the end of August, September, and October, and will likely plan new user training events around them. This year's VA fall tidal flooding calendar is featured below to provide more specifics on each tidal flooding event. Please download and save this interactive PDF calendar for your reference:
You can click on a green highlighted King Tide period in the calendar or using this page's tabs (mobile interface) or the left sidebar menu (desktop) to learn more about that period's predicted astronomical tidal peaks and troughs for an area in Virginia near you.