Tilt Current Meters, take 2

In an earlier blog, the Tilt Current Meters were introduced as an innovative way of measuring currents in an extensive spatial grid. Deployment and recovery of the first batch of TCM's from a RIB boat with assistance by Shore Monitoring & Research went successfully. Since as many TCM's as possible were placed in the vicinity of ADCP stations, a valuable validation dataset has been obtained to check upon the TCM's working principle. A very promising validation plot is appended below:

5-minute averaged tilt magnitude of the TCM is shown in blue, 1 hour averaged velocity magnitude of the ADCP is shown in red. There is a dominant tidal signal visible in the data.

Yesterday the TCM's have been deployed for the second time, in a slightly different array. We hope to capture some more aspects of the tidal currents on the northern flank of the Sand Motor, as recent drifter deployments showed hints of tidal eddy formation in that region.

This week, all available resources are used to study the currents around the Sand Motor. The TCM's have been deployed, the two cross-shore and one alongshore measurement arrays are still in place, drifter deployments will be carried out and the drone teams from Delft and Miami will capture dye injections from above. Exciting data guaranteed!