Florida Tide Times

Quick answer: pick a Florida beach above for today’s high and low tides, whether the water is rising or falling right now, sunrise and sunset, and the week ahead. They are NOAA’s predictions for its station nearest that beach on open water, in the beach’s own time. Pick a day to plan a trip.

How to use it

Choose one of 32 beaches, inlets and bays on the Atlantic coast, the Keys, the Gulf coast and the Panhandle, or let the tool find the one nearest you (your location stays on your device). Today’s answer says whether the tide is coming in or going out and when it turns; any other day lists its highs and lows. The table under the answer is the next seven days, and Copy link keeps the beach, the day and feet or metres.

Where the tides come from

Every time and height is a prediction by NOAA’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS), computed from years of water levels recorded at each station. They are not measurements: a strong onshore wind, a storm or low air pressure can push the water higher and later than predicted, and an offshore wind the other way. Heights are measured from mean lower low water (MLLW), the average of each day’s lowest tide, so a low tide below it shows as a negative number.

For each beach the tool uses NOAA’s nearest reference station on open water: the ocean or the Gulf, a pass or an inlet. A station up a river, a canal or the back of a bay is skipped even when it is closer, because the tide there can turn an hour or more after the beach’s. Where no reference station on open water is within 15 km, the tool uses a subordinate station, whose highs and lows NOAA predicts from a nearby reference station. The page names the station and how far it is.

Each place’s station and its tide

The NOAA station used for each beach, inlet or bay, how far it is from the town, and how much the water rises from a low tide to the next high, on average over the months the tool holds.

Worked examples

The Atlantic and the Panhandle. At Amelia Island the water rises about 6 ft from a low tide to the next high; at Destin, about 0.5 ft. Florida’s northeast coast has the state’s biggest tides, and the Panhandle its smallest: there, more than 8 days in 10 have a single high tide and a single low, where the Atlantic coast has two of each on more than 9 days in 10.

Shelling at low tide. Shells and sand dollars are easiest to find as the water goes out. Pick Sanibel Island and the day you arrive: the low tides are the times to walk the beach, and sunrise and sunset say which of them come in daylight.

A kayak or a sandbar. Pick the beach and read the week ahead for the high tides of your trip: going out on a rising tide and coming back as it turns means the water helps you both ways.

Common mistakes

• Reading a tide chart for the wrong station. A bay or a river can be an hour or more behind the beach it is next to, and its highs lower.
• Forgetting the time zone. The Panhandle west of the Apalachicola River keeps Central time; the tool shows each beach’s own.
• Treating a prediction as a promise. Wind and storms move the water, so watch the sea as well as the clock, and heed the beach’s warning flags.
• Planning around one day’s times for a whole trip. The tides come from half an hour to about 50 minutes later each day all along Florida’s coast: read each day of the week ahead.

Plan the beach day

Where to look for shells: Sanibel or Captiva for shelling, the best shelling beaches in Naples and whether you can take a sand dollar home. On the water, Key West’s kayak launch spots. Before you swim, the free Florida Beach Conditions Today gives the day’s rip current warnings, sea temperature and red tide for 20 of the same beaches.