19/12/2025
Here at Thompson Beach we often experience what are known as "Dodge Tides". Here's an explanation of what a Dodge tide actually is by BoM
This is a local South Australian term for a Neap tide with minimal rise and fall over the course of a day or two.
While very 'flat' Neaps occur in a number of locations worldwide, the term 'dodge' is used only in South Australia.
Professor Sir Robert Chapman, C.M.G., writing in the Official Yearbook of the Commonwealth of Australia of 1938, stated
"At spring tides the range, due to the semi-diurnal waves, is 2(M2 + S2), and at neaps, if the two are equal, or nearly equal, they practically neutralize one another and cause no rise nor fall at all. This is what happens at Port Adelaide where at this period the recording gauge shows frequently little or nothing in the way of tide, in some cases the level of the water remaining almost constant for a whole day; in other cases one small tide occurs during the day. On each side of this tide is markedly irregular both as regards time and height, and the apparent impossibility of saying when the tide will be at this particular period has presumably gained for it its name 'The Dodger'.
Above text sourced from BoM.
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