Hundreds of swimmers cool off at Yellow Pier, Nuku‘alofa, this evening some two hours before the peak of a King Tide. 3 January 2013.

Tonga is expecting another King Tide this evening, with some sea flooding expected when the high tide occurs at 8:57 pm in Nuku‘alofa. The extreme high tides experienced this week are expected to continue through to Sunday.

The Fua‘amotu Weather Forecasting Centre this morning, Friday January 3, stated that its extreme high tide advisory remains in force for all of the Tonga islands.

“An extreme high tide coinciding with the new moon is expected this evening and may cause sea flooding of low lying coastal areas. These high tides in the evenings are expected to continue until Sunday.”

The tide predictions for Nuku‘alofa show a high tide of 1.87m at 20:57 tonight, with 1.85m at 21:53 on Saturday and other high tides over the weekend expected to reach 1.79m.

Meanwhile, the weather on Tongatapu remains cloudy with occasional showers as a trough lies slow moving over Tonga.

The outlook for the weekend for Tonga, (except the Niuas) is for moderate east to northeast winds, mostly cloudy with occasional showers, possibly heavy at times.

For Tonga waters winds are likely to become gusty at times on Sunday with 20-25 knots gusting to 30-35 knots, rough to very rough seas and a moderate northwest swell.

Cyclone season

Tonga's official tropical cyclone season began on November 1, 2013 and will end on April 30, 2014, and this season Tonga can expect one to two cyclones, which could become severe.

The Meterorology Division of the Ministry of Infrastructure, in its pre-season tropical cyclone season outlook, stated that the current neutral phase of the El Nino southern Oscilllation suggested that neutral conditions would prevail through the season.

The pre-season conditions over the South West Pacific indicated similar characteristics to five tropical cyclone seasons in the past including 1981/82 when Tropical Cyclone Issac hit all the Tonga island groups severely, and 1996/97 the season of TC Hina and TC Keli.

Photographs

Matangi Tonga Online invites our readers to share any photographs that they have taken of the King Tides in Tonga this week, to help understand the impacts of rising sea levels on our beaches, coastal areas and shoreline communities.