NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Meridian passage of moon
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2016 Apr 11, 07:30 -0700
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2016 Apr 11, 07:30 -0700
This comes up on a regular basis. My thoughts:
I believe it's mostly a relic of traditional tide prediction. For any port with relatively "normal" semi-diurnal (meaning twice daily) tides, there is a relatively stable offset between the Moon's meridian passage and the times of high and low high tides. For example, in Mystic, Connecticut, low tide occurs three hours after the moon's meridian passage. The same rule applies to lower meridian passage. Now of course, one can easily estimate the time of lower meridian passage. It's about 12.5 hours after upper meridian passage. A tabulated almanac value is hardly necessary. Traditions die hard.
Frank Reed
ReedNavigation.com
Conanicut Island USA