Spring is a week away and one of the change in season signs is “spring tide.” In the next week, the Vineyard will experience higher and lower than normal tides. Spring arrives on Friday, March 20, at 6:45 p.m.

If you thought the tides were extreme last month, wait until next week. The event is tied to two coordinated events, plus a third. First, the New Moon and Sun are positioned together in the same part of our daylight sky, bringing a greater collective pull on our oceans. Their gravity is what creates our daily tidal changes.

The moon is also loser than usual at the time of New Moon. The moon is closest to the earth on Wednesday; perigee takes place on March 19. The moon will be slightly more than 222,000 miles away, or 13 per cent closer than when it was farthest from the earth, in apogee, on March 5.

The shared gravitational pull of both the Sun and Moon will give us noticeable higher and lower than normal tides. Tides run higher around noon and midnight. Low tide will run fairly close to the beginning and the end of the day. You may first notice the tidal variation early in the coming week. Sand bars that are normally hidden in our water ways will be noticeable at low tide. The wrackline will rise higher up the beach than we are accustomed to seeing.

Coinciding with this close moon, there will be a solar eclipse on Friday visible from a narrow band running through Greenland, across Iceland and to Scotland. For much of Europe this will be a partial solar eclipse.

Call this a confluence of positive events to help us move away from this cold winter.

The last quarter moon appears low in the southeastern sky well after midnight tonight, between the two southern most zodiacal constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. The moon rises well after midnight.