Russell Coker: Tidal River
Tim (a member of my local LUG) writes about some observations he has made of a nearby river and speculates on a tidal bore-like phenomenon [1].
One thing that surprised me was how short the list was on the Tidal Bore Wikipedia page [2], and the fact that is it missing an entry for Tidal River at Wilson s Promontory [3] (where my family often spent the Christmas holidays when I was young).
Some of the tidal bores are described as having a wave as high as two meters, Tidal River is not so impressive, my observation was that during the 80 s it was about 40cm near the mouth of the river. The area near the river mouth had many bends when I last saw it which absorbed some of the energy of the wave (but I expect that the river changes course constantly so it might be straight from time to time).
On one occasion I River Surfed [4] about 500 meters upstream at Tidal River on a surf-mat (an inflatable surf-board).
I have searched for research into this issue, the Tidal Bore Research Society [5] seems to just maintain a list of tidal bores and not do any real research. Pierre Lubin, Stephane Glockner, and Hubert Chanson published a paper titled Numerical simulation of turbulence generated by a tidal bore [6]. Hubert Chanson at the University of Queensland has written an interesting paper titled Physical Modelling of the Flow Field in an Undular Tidal Bore [7]. Hubert seems to have published more papers related to tidal bores than anyone else (or at least more papers that are publicly accessible).
- [1] http://tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com/141448.html
- [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_bore
- [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_River,_Wilsons_Promontory
- [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_surfing
- [5] http://www.tidalbore.info/
- [6] http://www.trefle.u-bordeaux1.fr/personnel/documents/ti2009_lubin.pdf
- [7] http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view.php?pid=UQ:9448