I have never seen the word "perihelion" in a weather warning before! Wow.
I'm totally saving this to show my students why basic astro 101 is very practical sometimes (...ok maybe the prairies do not have a tidal flooding problem...but... perihelion!!)
@sundogplanets I bet that left you aphelion pretty good!
@sundogplanets loosen the mooring lines on your prairie schooners after you get back from oyster harvesting.
@sundogplanets yeah, presumably no coastal flooding in Saskatchewan since the Western Interior Seaway receded in the late Cretaceous.
@sundogplanets Nice! A bit off-topic - the convoluted way I've always remembered perihelion vs. aphelion is that the longer word implies shorter distance (from the sun).
@bhoot My trick is to remember "perilously close" :)
@sundogplanets Marvelous! That's my approach too from now on :D
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/115828276041483994
Ah, perfect, @AkaSci added a diagram and an explanation of why this weather warning is happening!
Happy Perihelion+perigee Moon!
@sundogplanets The moon WAS super bright last night. Makes sense now. TIL. Thanks!
@sundogplanets
Curious that they did not mention that the moon is close to perigee around earth, which provides a second contribution to the high tides.
@AkaSci If they had managed to work "syzygy" into the flooding statement I might have actually fallen off my chair with excitement! But yes, that is interesting!
@sundogplanets it's wild to me that the perihelion affects tides, but not the season. That's a strong tilt!
@sundogplanets
Probably 1% of the people who know the meaning of perihelion studied astronomy.
The other 99% played Kerbal...
(Yes, there's an xkcd).
@sundogplanets
And then I realised KSP uses periapsis, not perihelion. What's the difference?
Checked Wikipedia. The explanations looked very similar, I had to read them several times before I noticed the difference. Oh yeah, Helios means sun.
So the two words means the same, IF you are orbiting the sun. Which the earth is. But of course Kerbals never orbit our sun, their sun is named Kerbol. So they don't actually use the word perihelion.
I once had to explain to someone how Lake Superior only gets a few centimeters of tide; so the extra couple of millimeters from perihelion versus aphelion does not much matter.
And after a few cloudy-but-not-rainy days, we're back to an impressive forecast showcasing Weather Canada's ability to say "rain" in as many different ways as possible
@sundogplanets We have different types of ''rain'' like they have different types of snow in the North. 😁
@sundogplanets given where you are, all of those mean "steady wet stuff of slightly varying intensity". (I landed up in BC from a place where "showers" meant "it rains for a bit and then stops", but in BC that's not what "showers" means.)
@sundogplanets It's floods & rain barrels season. Every nature outing includes muddy boots 😂 On the upside, the air smells fab & the trails are empty 🌧
@sundogplanets that forecast is missing the 'rain at times heavy' option
My old band was called para!helion - https://archive.org/details/3MilestoMecca
A play on perihelion
Internet Archive
@sundogplanets For those living along the coast, these abnormally high tides are known as “King Tides.” Having both the sun and moon near perihelion is the recipe!
@sundogplanets Gotta get the science out there however you can. 😎
