Released September 26, 2005

HATTIESBURG – Local residents can check tidal elevations here minute by minute at their computer as Hurricane Katrina advances, thanks to a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide station.

The new water level station at the end of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory pier is providing updates online at tidesonline.nos.noaa.gov. The site includes charts updated every 15 minutes and data recorded and reported in real-time.

The station dedicated in May helps measure storm surge and land subsidence. It is the second for Mississippi and the first on the coast to be co-located with a GPS-based Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS). A CORS provides highly accurate positioning information to the coastal surveying, engineering and science community.

The water level station is part of a height modernization initiative that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration established at The University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Geospatial Center at GCRL. The new Southern Miss program is installing a CORS network in coastal Mississippi along with co-located water level stations at selected CORS sites.

A one-year NOAA grant of $532,256 this summer is continuing the program that is designed to provide the resources for Mississippi to gather needed data on land elevations and to relate those measurements to the changes in sea levels in the Gulf of Mexico. David S. Mooneyhan, associate director of the center at the GCRL, is principal investigator of the program.

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