Mondo Knows Facts
Some ocean points have almost no tide at all
At an amphidromic point the tidal range collapses to near zero while water rotates around it Where a tidal wave is trapped in a basin, it tends to rotate around a node rather than rise and fall in place. Around that node the water level stays almost steady while the crest sweeps in a circle every tidal cycle. The effect means two nearby ports can have very different ranges. It sits in Mondo's world geography collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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More facts like this
Tides come in pairs because of stretchingThe Moon pulls hardest on the near side, and the resulting imbalance bulges the far side tooSpring tides have nothing to do with the seasonThe name comes from the old sense of springing upward, and the tides happen twice a monthTidal range depends on the shape of the coastFunnelling estuaries amplify the tide while open shores and enclosed seas barely moveThe Bay of Fundy tide arrives as a waveIn the upper reaches the rising water forms a visible bore that travels upriverCanada has the longest total coastline of any nationCanada boasts a total coastline exceeding 202,000 kilometres including its thousands of Arctic islands.The Great Barrier Reef is visible from outer spaceStretching for over 2,300 kilometres off Australia northeastern coast, it is the world's largest living structure.
🗺️ World Geographyfact 170 of 200
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Tags: tides, oceans, physics
Some ocean points have almost no tide at all: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- At an amphidromic point the tidal range collapses to near zero while water rotates around it. The figure is taken from NOAA Ocean Service, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a world geography fact?
- Yes. It sits on the World Geography shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.