How often do neap tides occur
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- when neap tides occur
Neap tide diagram
What causes a neap tide...
The lowest and highest tides
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Anyone who has looked at a tide chart closely will have noticed that the height of the high tides (and for that matter low tides) varies over the course of the month.
This can also be seen in the graph of tidal heights below.
How big the variation in high and low tide from day to day depends on the location. Spring tides are often more extreme in places with a large tidal range.
Spring Tides
A spring tide is generally a twice-monthly phenomenon in which the high tides are higher than average and low tides lower than average. Despite their name, spring tides are not related to the season of Spring; the term "spring" here comes from the idea of the tide "springing forth" or rising higher.
What causes spring tides?
All tides are the result of the gravitational interaction between the Earth, the Moon, and to a smaller degree, the Sun.
The relative movement of these there celestial bodies is what determines not only the times of the tides, but the size of the tide.
In the scheme of things the distances between the the
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