Strong winds out of the south later today are piling up water in the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay. That, coupled with lunar tides (the moon will be full on Friday) will produce unusually high tides this evening along the Western Shore. Gale warnings will go up at 2 p.m. on Maryland's portion of the Bay.

The graph above shows tides are already running well above predicted levels at Baltimore.

The National Weather Service has issued a Coastal Flood Advisory through 6 a.m. Thursday,  alerting coastal interests to high tides as much as two feet above predicted levels, with minor flooding possible in the usual vulnerable spots, including City Dock in Annapolis and Old Town Alexandria in Virginia. We could see the water lapping over the bulkhead at the water taxi dock at Harborplace, too.

Here's the advisory, with high tide times along the Western Shore.

And as a cold front approaches from the west tonight, we can expect showers, and maybe a thunderstorm and damaging winds - perhaps even an isolated tornado - until the front goes by. The severe weather, if it materializes, would reach us sometime between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m., forecasters said.

Once the front passes, winds will shift to the west or northwest. That will drop temperatures sharply, and take the pressure off the Bay, returning tides to more normal levels. Here's the forecast.