'Catch the King' on Oct. 17-20, 2024
VIMS' Model-Predicted Maximum Flooding Extents compared with Wetlands Watch's Sea Level Rise Mobile App Observations for the King Tides during October 17-20, 2024, from 08:00 AM - 03:59 PM EST
"Catch the King" is a community science GPS data collection effort focused on coastal Virginia, USA, that seeks to interactively map the King Tide's maximum inundation extents. The goal is to validate and improve predictive model accuracy for future forecasting of increasingly pervasive "nuisance" flooding. Catch the King will take place in 2024 on the weekend of October 17-20, 2024.
Catch the King was founded as a collaborative effort to give members of the public an opportunity to engage personally in climate change adaptation. While the development of the Sea Level Rise app was led by Wetlands Watch and local tech company, Open Health Innovations, the idea for creating a statewide program stems from the creative minds of Wetlands Watch’s former Executive Director, Skip Stiles, retired Virginian-Pilot reporter, Dave Mayfield, and Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) assistant professor, Dr. Derek Loftis.
The 2024 Virginia tidal inundation calendar is featured below identifying relevant moon phases and it highlights periods of amplified high tides (typically >3 ft. above MLLW in Chesapeake Bay) or even higher king tides (usually >3.5 ft. above MLLW in Chesapeake Bay). This year's VA tidal flooding calendar is featured below to provide more specific details on each tidal flooding event. Please download and save this 2024 Virginia Fall Tidal Flooding Calendar (Interactive links embedded in PDF) for your reference:
Throughout the year, trained tidal flood mappers use the free Sea Level Rise mobile application (iOS / Android) developed by Wetlands Watch and Concursive to walk the high water lines in public spaces near them to digitally trace GPS contours of the maximum extent of tidal flood waters. These data are shared publicly after the end of the mapping event and used as a public annual tidal calibration for the forecast predictions generated from VIMS' Tidewatch Map. Annually, a live tidal calibration of the forecasts driven from the Center for Coastal Resources Management's SCHISM hydrodynamic model (developed by Dr. Joseph Zhang) is conducted by the trained participatory scientists engaged with Catch the King, and analyzed by Dr. Loftis at VIMS.
{{youtube:large|zXlOQfbtPX4, See Catch the King's Recent Media Coverage on Fox Weather.}}
In 2024, Catch the King will take place on the weekend of October 17-20, 2024, during some of the highest astronomical tides of the year, which were harmonically forecasted to be 3.58-3.66 ft. above MLLW at Sewells Point in Norfolk, VA. The king tide will take place at many different times at coastal places throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia's coastal region.