Mississippi coast

Guides

Short explainers for the parts of the board that decide whether you go, for every Mississippi county board, Hancock County to Jackson County. Each one links to the agency that owns the facts, and none of them go out of date on a schedule. The live readings are on the board.

• Tsunami: what to do on the Gulf
  What is actually known about tsunamis on this coast, the sea’s own warning signs, what each alert level means, your county’s alerts, and why storm surge is the water that usually does harm here.
• Small craft advisories and Mississippi Sound
  The one zone every town on this coast reads, the Gulf zones beyond the barrier islands, and what an advisory, gale or special marine warning means in knots.
• Reading a tide table on the Mississippi coast
  What the zero is measured from, why the tide here is small and usually once a day, which stations are live gauges and which are predictions, and why the wind can move the water more than the tide.
• Road closures on this coast
  MDOT’s own traffic alerts on US 90, I-10 and the roads between them, what MDOT calls a closure, and a closure filed for a later day.
• Fishing: what is open, and the limits
  MDMR’s daily limits and season orders, red snapper on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and why a fish says Check.
• Fire: what is burning, and burn bans
  The Forestry Commission’s county burn bans, with their dates and numbered exemptions, and wildfires on the national interagency list.
• Beach water: who samples, and what an advisory means
  MDEQ’s water contact advisories and closures for the 21 beaches it samples, the difference between the two, and what a beach with no advisory still does not tell you.
• Oysters: the season, the areas and the orders
  How MDMR opens the season and each harvest area by order, closes them on rain and river stage, and which areas are off each town.