Using Xtide for OMG processing

We're actually using the command line equivalent to xtide (the 'tide' program). You can select the location name with the -l switch. The -b and -e switches are used to specify the beginning and ending of the time series you want to generate. The -s "00:10" tells tide to output solutions every ten minutes. The '-m r' switch specifies to output in mode 'raw'. The -z switch forces times to be output in GMT. You can hunt down the location name using xtide to isolate the station you're interested.

	tide -l "Wilson's Beach, Campobello Island, New Brunswick" -b "2006-06-01 00:00" -e "2006-07-01 00:00" -s "00:10" -m r -z > Wilsons_Beach.ascii

This outputs data in the following format (seconds since 1970 and tide level):

	1149120000 2.267974
	1149120600 2.193208
	1149121200 2.136117
	1149121800 2.097514
	1149122400 2.077911
	1149123000 2.077499
	1149123600 2.096139
	1149124200 2.133373
	1149124800 2.188436
	1149125400 2.260302
	1149126000 2.347726
	1149126600 2.449301
	1149127200 2.563525
	1149127800 2.688860
	1149128400 2.823798
	1149129000 2.966914
	1149129600 3.116913
	...	   .....

The ascii file generated above can then be binarized and used for subsequent OMG processing with the binTide command, used as follows. The -1970time switch allows binTide to read the format output by tide (instead of the usual JDAY HH MM TIDE format).

	binTide -1970time Wilsons_Beach.ascii Wilsons_Beach.bin

It's always a good idea to do a sanity check by plotting up your tides. You can plot up the raw output of 'tide' using xmgr.

	tide -l "Wilson's Beach, Campobello Island, New Brunswick" -b "2006-06-01 00:00" -e "2006-07-01 00:00" -s "00:10" -m r -z | xmgr -source stdin

Last modified: 20060620 by J. Beaudoin