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Red Tide Toxins Add Concern To This Year's King Tides

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - With red tide toxins in the water, the concern is that they may flow inland with the King tides this year.

King tides develop this weekend and will peak with the high tide of Tuesday morning October 9th.

This is an annual event that occurs as the moon and sun come into alignment and cause larger tidal swings between high and low tide.

High tides occur twice per day with the higher of the two this weekend coming in the morning between 7 and 8 a.m. There may be little to no flooding initially but with each successive high tide the water will get higher and higher.

Typical places that have flooded in past years should prepare for more of the same this year.

Compounding the issue this year will be a persistent onshore wind that has been around for days and may increase in strength by Monday night.

With that strong east wind the water can pile up along the coast and bays and not be able to drain between the high and low tide, leading to additional flooding.

The culprit this year may be a tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico that along with increasing the onshore wind here, may bring tropical downpours to the region during the peak of the King tides. Rainfall may add to the tidal flooding.

Adding to this year's King Tide concern is the Red Tide detected off the Atlantic Beaches over the past few days.

Normally a Gulf Coast event, the algae was able to ride the ocean currents to the Atlantic and was pushed ashore by the onshore breeze.

This upcoming King Tide is a result of the New Moon happening Monday night just before midnight.

The Full Moon occurs October 24 later this month and will bring with it another round of higher than normal tides.

The full moon high tides are not forecast to be as high as the tides levels reached with the New Moon.

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