I have often mentioned that predictions of high water in Venice turn out to be as accurate as weather predictions anywhere else. Sometimes even less accurate, given how sensitive the whole lagoon situation is to all sorts of factors, including wind.
The last week or so has undoubtedly been rather trying for the dauntless Paolo Canestrelli, director of the Tide Center. Because while the Gazzettino, rightly or wrongly, published a series of articles that sounded fairly alarmist: “Feast of the Salute with your hipboots,” “Feast of the Salute with no walkways,” “F of the S at 120 cm [four feet] of high water,” and so on, it didn’t turn out quite that way.
These stories were irksome for a few reasons, none of which had to do with whether or not I had to put on my hipboots.
First, the area around the basilica of the Salute is much higher than the Piazza San Marco, therefore a tide prediction which sounds drastic in one place won’t be nearly so much so in another.
Second, so far this autumn few forecasts have turned out as given. The 120 cm repeatedly predicted for Sunday morning? We got 103 [3 feet].
The tide did finally manage to pull itself up to 122 cm, but that was at 12:10 Sunday night, when probably there weren’t many people or taxis or barges around to be inconvenienced.
A few nights later, the sirens sounded with two additional tones, signaling the probable arrival of 120-130 cm [4-5 feet] of water. Two tones means that we will have some water about halfway up the street outside our door. But in the end, our canal did no more than kiss the edge of the fondamenta. The fact that there was virtually no wind also helped.
Regardless of the height or non-height of the eventual water, articles dramatize that the city has “water on the ground” without specifying the depth — sometimes it can be two inches, but the term “high water” is usually used by the media to sound as if the levees have broken. And these articles never mention how much of Venice has water, making it sound as if the entire city were going under. Someone might be sufficiently original as to publish a story that says “Two tones means that up to 29 per cent of the city is under water,” but I have yet to see one that says “71 per cent of the city is bone dry.”
I realize that drama is entertaining, but why dramatize it at all? It’s not dramatic. It’s temporarily slightly tiresome, at a very low level on the Zwingle Slightly Tiresome Index. I’d rate it a 2, the same as hanging out the laundry.