Guide

Reading a tide table on Florida’s Gulf coast

Checked October 4, 2026 against NOAA Tides and Currents and NOAA’s National Ocean Service.

The Tides tile repeats NOAA’s predictions for the station nearest your town and, where there is one, what its gauge is measuring now. On this coast the tide is small, and the wind can move the water as much as the Moon does. This page explains what the zero is, the shape of the tide here, which station each town reads, which tables are worked out from another station, and how to read the gap between the prediction and the water.

Zero is not the bottom

Every height on the tile is measured from mean lower low water — MLLW — which NOAA defines as “the average of the lower low water height of each tidal day observed over the National Tidal Datum Epoch.” Because it is an average, many low tides fall below it: a prediction of −0.3 ft is not an error. A charted depth is also measured from MLLW, so a channel charted at 4 feet has less than that on a minus tide.

A small tide, once a day in the west and twice a day to the south

NOAA’s National Ocean Service: “Some areas, such as the Gulf of Mexico, have only one high and one low tide each day.” That is a diurnal tide, which NOAA’s glossary describes as the tide “when only one high water and one low water occur during a tidal day.” NOAA files the four live gauges from Pensacola to Apalachicola — Pensacola, Panama City Beach, Panama City and Apalachicola — as diurnal. Most days the table there shows one high and one low, and on some days two of each.

Down the peninsula the pattern changes. NOAA files the five live gauges from Cedar Key south — Cedar Key, Clearwater Beach, St. Petersburg, Fort Myers and Naples — as mixed: “If the high and low tides differ in height, the pattern is called a mixed semidiurnal tide”, with “two high and two low tides of different size every lunar day.” There the table usually shows two highs and two lows, one of each much smaller than the other, and on some days the small pair all but vanishes. Neither is a mistake.

The range is small. NOAA’s figure for each station is the great diurnal range, “the difference in height between mean higher high water and mean lower low water.” West of Apalachicola it is under two feet everywhere these boards read, and in Choctawhatchee Bay barely half a foot: 0.55 at Valparaiso, 0.60 at Hogtown Bayou. It grows to the east, 2.01 at Cat Point and 2.79 at Alligator Point, and it is largest around the Big Bend, 3.80 at Cedar Key and 4.05 at the Withlacoochee River entrance. In Tampa Bay it is a little over two feet, and in Charlotte Harbor and up the Caloosahatchee under two. Up a river or a spring run it can be far less: 0.68 at the Halls River bridge on the Homosassa.

Which station each town reads

“Live gauge” means NOAA publishes the gauge’s measured level as it comes in; “prediction” means a table and nothing measured. The Pensacola and Emerald Coast board reads nine stations, the South Walton and Panama City board five stations, the Forgotten Coast and Big Bend board fourteen stations, the Nature Coast board eight stations, the Tampa Bay board sixteen stations, the Sarasota to Fort Myers board sixteen stations, and the Naples and Ten Thousand Islands board five stations. The range is NOAA’s great diurnal range for that station; “not published” means NOAA gives none for it. Grayton Beach and Rosemary Beach have no Gulf-side station nearer than the Panama City Beach pier. Holmes Beach reads the Bradenton Beach table, Palmetto the Bradenton one across the Manatee River, and Port Charlotte the Punta Gorda one across the harbour.

Pensacola to Mexico Beach

The Forgotten Coast and the Big Bend

The Nature Coast

Tampa Bay

Sarasota to Bonita Springs

Collier County

The Atlantic coast and the Keys

On the Atlantic the tide comes twice a day, and it is larger: six and a half feet at Fernandina Beach, two to three on the Gold Coast, under a foot in the lagoons behind the barrier islands, where the inlets let little of it through. The First Coast board reads twelve stations, the Space Coast board reads nine stations, the Treasure Coast board reads eight stations, the Gold Coast board reads twenty-one stations and the Florida Keys board reads six stations. Titusville has no NOAA tide station: NOAA predicts no tide on the Indian River Lagoon there, the nearest is the ocean’s at Port Canaveral nineteen miles off, and the lagoon’s own tide is a matter of inches, so its board shows no tide at all. Cocoa and Merritt Island read the ocean side, and their cards say how far. Live gauges are few: none between Mayport and Port Canaveral, and none between Virginia Key and Vaca Key.

The First Coast

The Space Coast

The Treasure Coast

The Gold Coast

The Florida Keys

Many tables are worked out from another station

NOAA publishes two kinds of tide prediction. “Harmonic stations are stations with tidal harmonic constants and tidal datums. Tide predictions for harmonic stations are generated directly from the harmonic constants.” But “subordinate stations are historic stations which do not have tidal harmonic constants available”, and for them NOAA first makes high/low predictions for a reference station, then applies time and height adjustments.

Every table above marked “worked from” is made that way. Each line is NOAA’s adjustment: minutes before (−) or after (+) the reference station’s high and low tide, and the height as a multiple of the reference station’s.

NOAA adds that subordinate stations “only allow for the generation of high/low tide predictions”. Nothing at those places is measured. A table worked from a station many miles off — the Pithlachascotee from Clearwater Beach, Everglades City from Naples — is only as close to the water in front of you as that adjustment.

Why the water is not where the prediction said

NOAA is direct about what a tide table leaves out:

On a coast with a tide of a foot or two, those effects can be bigger than the tide. The National Ocean Service: “Onshore winds may act to pile up water onto the shoreline, virtually eliminating low tide exposures”, and “strong offshore winds can move water away from coastlines, exaggerating low tide exposures.” From Pensacola to the Big Bend this coast faces the Gulf to the south, so a steady south or southeast wind is onshore and holds the water up, and the north wind behind a front is offshore and pulls it down. From Cedar Key south it faces west, so a west wind holds the water up and an east or northeast wind pulls it down.

So read the tile this way. Where the station has a live gauge, the measured level is the answer and the prediction is a guide to when it will rise and fall. Where it has predictions only, treat the table as the start of the question and look at the wind forecast. The Water level tile, where your town has one, reads the Weather Service’s own tide gauge against the level at which coastal flooding begins. And a hurricane’s storm surge is a different thing altogether; it is the weather service’s warnings, not the tide table, that speak to it.

Sources

• NOAA Tides and Currents, tidal datums — MLLW and the great diurnal range
• NOAA Tides and Currents, glossary — the diurnal tide
• NOAA National Ocean Service, types and causes of tidal cycles — the Gulf’s diurnal tide
• NOAA National Ocean Service, what affects tides in addition to the Sun and Moon — onshore and offshore wind
• NOAA Tides and Currents, frequently asked questions — what a prediction can and cannot include
• NOAA Tide Predictions, help — harmonic and subordinate stations
• NOAA’s adjustments: East Pass, Lynn Haven, St. George Island, Carrabelle, Alligator Point; every other station’s the same way, by its number, for example Steinhatchee, Tampa and Everglades City
• NOAA’s station details, which give the tide type and datums: for example Pensacola (diurnal) and St. Petersburg (mixed)