Acqua Bassa: Venice Canals Dry Up

Another little acqua alta? Flooding in Piazza San Marco? Snore. Hardly news. Happens all the time. But what if, instead, Venice were to experience a period of prolonged low tides ... an acqua bassa, if you will? Now that, my friends, would be news. Not "dog bites man", but "man bites dog", as the old journalism adage goes.

Amazingly, this is actually the current situation. It's said to be caused by a combination of lunar phase and a patch of hyper-sunny weather. Take a look at the chart below from the Comune di Venezia.

It shows you that the low tide today  hit an incredible -64 centimeters (-25 inches). It has been as low as -70 centimeters in the past few days.

As waters become too low to navigate, serious problems have been created for larger boats, especially vaporettos, as well as for emergency craft, like the caribinieri speedboats, fire boats, and water ambulances, . Alternative routes are quickly being drawn up as the canals dry up.

So if you're heading to Venice tonight, leave your rubber boots in the garage.

Comments

[Sharon]

cnn.com has a similiar story, complete with a photo of gondolas near the Rialto Bridge.

www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/01/13/venice.reut/index.html

[Ham]

any ideas as to whether there will be flooding in December this year?