North Carolina Tide Charts

High tide arrives at a different time at each station. Atlantic Beach reaches 4.57 ft at 9:37 am; Atlantic Beach Bridge reaches 3.07 ft at 10:26 am; Bald Head reaches 5.47 ft at 10:00 am. The table above lists the next high and the next low for all 65 North Carolina stations.

Sunset Beach Pier, where high and low water differ by 5.4 ft today. The smallest of the 65 North Carolina stations with a range today is Cedar Island at 0.1 ft. Range varies along a coast because the shape of a bay or estuary amplifies or damps the same ocean tide.

No North Carolina station on this page drops below mean lower low water today. A minus tide is water below that datum, the zero point for US tide predictions, and it is what tidepoolers and clammers plan around. Each station page lists a month of predictions, so the next one is visible there.

Not all alike. 56 are mixed semidiurnal, 8 are semidiurnal and 1 is diurnal. Each station page classifies itself from its own predictions rather than from a regional rule, because the pattern changes along a single coast.

NOAA states roughly ten minutes on timing and half a foot on height for a reference station in ordinary weather. 37 of the 65 stations here are reference stations; the rest are subordinate, with times and heights derived from one by a published offset, so expect a little more spread. Weather is the bigger factor either way. A storm surge or a strong onshore wind can raise real water well above the prediction, which is astronomy only.