Guide

How to read a bar report

Checked September 12, 2026 against the Coast Guard, the National Weather Service and federal rules.

The Bar conditions tile repeats what the Coast Guard reports for the river and harbor entrances on your stretch of the coast: two between Astoria and Neskowin, three between Lincoln City and Florence, five between Reedsport and Brookings. Here is what each word means, and what it does not.

The ten bars

Each town links to its own board, where today’s report for its bar is read from the Coast Guard as it is posted, with the time it was taken.

Astoria to Neskowin

“Cape Disappointment” is the Coast Guard’s name for the Columbia River bar: the station that watches it is on the Washington side. It is the bar Astoria and Warrenton cross.

Lincoln City to Florence

Reedsport to Brookings

The Coast Guard’s bar conditions line for Oregon and Washington is 866-498-0713. The numbers above are the ones printed beside each bar on the National Weather Service’s bar observations page, which marks the Coquille and Rogue lines “when manned.”

Nehalem Bay, Netarts Bay, Nestucca Bay at Pacific City, Alsea Bay at Waldport and Siletz Bay at Lincoln City are not on the Coast Guard’s list. Nobody reports those entrances, so the board says so for those towns rather than lending them a neighbour’s report. The beach towns from Gearhart to Cannon Beach, Rockaway Beach, Neskowin and Yachats have no bar at all; the nearest reported ones are the Siuslaw and Yaquina Bay, each about twenty miles away. Port Orford has no bar either: its harbor opens straight onto the ocean.

What the words mean

• No restrictions. The Coast Guard had not restricted the bar when the report was made. It is not a promise that the bar is safe, and conditions on a bar can change within minutes.
• Restricted. Recreational boats and uninspected passenger vessels (small charters) below a length the Coast Guard sets at the time may not cross. A typical notice reads “restricted to all recreational vessels smaller than 36 feet.” This is federal law, not advice: the bars on this coast are Regulated Navigation Areas, and the Coast Guard has fined a boater $3,000 for crossing a restricted Coos Bay bar.
• Closed. No vessel may cross unless the Coast Guard authorizes it. A bar is closed when conditions are beyond what the Coast Guard can safely respond to.
• Unknown. There is no current report. Either the station is unmanned, as the Coquille River and Rogue River stations have been for years (as of September 2026), or the last report is more than 12 hours old. Unknown is never an all-clear. Call the number above.

The time and the words under it

Every report carries the time it was observed, and the board shows that time and how old it is. The paragraph under a report is the watchstander’s own description (swell, wind, visibility), shown exactly as they typed it, capitals and typos included, because rewording a safety report is how meaning gets lost.

Before you cross

• Check the report before you leave the dock, and again before the crossing.
• Restrictions and closures are announced as a Broadcast Notice to Mariners on VHF channels 16 and 22A.
• Between sunset and sunrise while a bar is restricted, uninspected passenger vessels and commercial fishing vessels must call the Coast Guard on channel 16 or 22A before crossing, with the vessel’s name, position, people aboard and destination.
• Wear your life jacket on the bar, and check the marine forecast and tides too: an ebb tide against a big swell is when bars turn.

Sources

• National Weather Service, bar observations (the feed the board reads, and the page every phone number above was read from)
• 33 CFR 165.1325, Regulated Navigation Areas: bars along the coasts of Oregon and Washington
• U.S. Coast Guard, Crossing the Coos Bay bar, Crossing the Tillamook Bay bar and Columbia River bar hazards
• U.S. Coast Guard, restricted bar enforcement in Coos Bay