Tides

The tide at the Battery, at the foot of Manhattan, predicted the way NOAA's own tide tables are: thirty-one steady rhythms, most of them set by the Moon and the Sun, added together using NOAA's measured constants for this station. Heights are in feet above mean lower low water, the zero on nautical charts. Wind and air pressure aren't part of it, so a storm can push the real water a foot or more away from these numbers.