General pattern of sea level in Safaga and Qusseir Harbours on the Egyptian Red Sea coast

Abstract

Safaga and Qusseir are two important harbours on the Egyptian Proper Red Sea coast. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work to describe the sea level characteristics at these two ports. The study is based on hourly sea level records over 3 years (2012–2014). There are no missed data at Qusseir site, but Safaga dataset missed 25% of records (April–December 2014). The hourly water level ranged between 0.02 m and 1.70 m at Safaga and between 0.04 m and 1.03 m at Qusseir, with a mean sea level (MSL) of 0.56 m and 0.50 m at the two Harbours, respectively. The T_TIDE package was used to produce astronomical and residual elevations at the two Harbours. Results revealed that the two Harbours examine explicit semidiurnal tidal cycle, with a bit higher astronomical amplitudes in Safaga. Moreover, the two sites exhibit almost the same seasonal sea level trend with very slight differences. The monthly mean levels at the two Harbours are always below their averages except during the summer months. The principal features of the semidiurnal tides indicated a ratio of 1.3 and 1.5 between spring and neap ranges at Safaga and Qusseir, respectively. The most pronounced sea level range at Safaga Harbour was 0.50 m, while it was 0.60 m at Qusseir Harbour. The astronomical elevations fluctuated between − 0.55 m and + 0.71 m and between − 0.47 m and + 0.53 m in Safaga and Qusseir Harbours, respectively.