Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Venice -2.0?

With 2 days left to go, it feels as if Venice wants us out of here after 20 years... And it's going to flush us out with Acqua Alta.  Let's hope we don't beat the historical record of 1.92m, or Venice will be at -2.0 meter under... The current forecast (see figure below - which will change every day from now on) is rather ominous, and things don't look too good for the next few days, as we try to wrap-up our 20th anniversary projects here. We had to move up our Preservenice and Municipal Data Objects presentations tomorrow to 11:30 (they were originally at 11, just 2 hours after a 140cm tide). Plus, we had a dinner planned for tomorrow evening at 8pm (with a 130cm tide forecasted at 10:40pm) at Pampo's, which we changed into a lunch at 1:30pm (in between peaks). Luckily, the City provides fairly accurate and timely warnings about the upcoming tide events, using forecasts, sms text messages and even sirens.  Despite the failure of the December 1st forecasts, we are hoping that our friend Paolo Canestrelli, who runs the Centro Maree will get it right this time or at least get it wrong by overstimation...  In any case, tonight, tomorrow and Friday, we'll be hearing the new tide warning sirens in Venice quite a bit...  Click the Play button in the lower left-hand corner in the picture below so you can hear them too, and be with us in spirit while in the comfort of your own home...
For added realism, try wearing rubber boots!