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Frequently Asked Questions
 1) How do I get Future/Past Tide Charts? / Variations
 2) How do I print a chart on one page?
 3) How do I read the tide chart? / Various
 4) Why are some tides missing?
 5) Why isn't the chart there?
 6) How can I find Spring and Neap tides?
 7) May we place a link to the New Bedford tide chart?
 1) How do I get Future/Past Tide Charts? / Variations
"Please send me the Scituate tides for next summer..."
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We post six months ahead so right now Mar (or whatever...) is as far as we go. April (or whatever...) will be up at the end of this month and so on. For tide info beyond 6 months try
http://tbone.biol.sc.edu/tide/sitesel.html/
On the other hand if you have one future day/location we'll do it:

"tentatively scheduled for Saturday, July 28, 2007. Would you have any information as to when the high and low tides would..."
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Dear ...,
Wellfleet predicted tides
Saturday, July 28, 2007

HIGH 11:00am 9.0'   11:12pm 10.8'
LOW 5.10am 0.7'   5:13pm 1.5'
Hope this helps.
Regards, John
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Thanks so much for your speedy response!

"...investigating an insurance claim...please send me the tide chart for last August..."
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...Sorry to say, we don't keep the old charts. For tide info before the 6 months we post, try
http://tbone.biol.sc.edu/tide/sitesel.html/
"I am a Professor at Northeastern University. My colleague and I were planning to use high tide data and compare them with the tide tables as a way of demonstrating experimental errors to students. I know how to access the tide tables, but my question is, where can I get the actual tide data..."
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...Historical water level data (as opposed to predictions) can be found at
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/station_retrieve.shtml?type=Historic+Tide+Data
"...I love your charts & use them all the time out here on Martha's Vineyard, but when will you put up June, July..."
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We post six months worth of tides for each location. The clickable maps on the tide index pages are for the current month (now May - or whenever...). For other months just scroll down the page to the text links.
If the clickable map isn't May - or whatever... then "refresh" your browser.
"Sir: I'd like for you to send me the copy of annual tide chart of east coast around West Palm Beach and Miami coast..."
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Tide predictions outside Massachusetts -
For Maine and New Hampshire go to http://www.maineboats.com/tide-charts
Rhode Island go to http://www.maineharbors.com/ri/tideri.htm
Everywhere else try - http://tbone.biol.sc.edu/tide/sitesel.html.
2) How do I print a chart on one page?
"I like your charts very much but I would like to print them to put on my wall each month. When I try to print they come out on two pages..."
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... it all depends on your setup, sometimes whether it's a 30 or 31 day month and so on. In any event, you can print on one page:

In Netscape go to Options/Fonts and reduce the font size to 12 (in MS Explorer - View/Text size - Medium or Smaller)

If that doesn't do it then go to File/Page Setup and set top and bottom margins to "0.00" and uncheck all header and footer info boxes.

This works fine on most setups, however you may have to reduce the font size further.

Sounds complicated but really takes longer to say it than do it.

Mac/Netscape - many of you have the ability to scale a page for printing - try 80%

3) How do I read the tide chart? / Various
These are all responses to various tide chart questions along the lines of "what does this term mean"
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"hgt" means height in feet (and 1/10s of a foot).
The tide data on our charts is relative to mean lower low water (MLLW - 0.0') which is the average of the lower (of the two) low water heights of each tidal day. The unit of measurement is feet (and 10ths of a foot).
In order to get an absolute height of the water under your boat's keel you would need a nautical chart for your location (which shows height of water at MLLW). Then add (or subtract) the tide height.
As far as going to the beach - the height probably isn't as important as the time of high or low tide. Although, we go to a beach nearby which has very little sand at high tide and a few days a month no sand as it backs up to the road's seawall. As a general rule, the highest (and lowest) tides of the month are just after the new and full moons. So on those days we make sure not to bother going to the beach at high tide.
Why you might care about the actual height of tide: Lets say you keep your sailboat (which draws 6 feet) in the Notdeep River. The nautical chart shows the river entrance depth is 7' which means 7' at average low tide (I'm making these numbers up). You look at the tide chart for today and it says 8.5' for the morning high and -1.8 for the low. So at high tide you would have 15.5 (7 + 8.5) feet of water and at low, 5.2 (7 -1.8) feet. Remember your boat needs 6' to float. You better not try sailing out the entrance at low tide today!
Our tide charts are corrected for Eastern Daylight Time so there is no need to add an hour.
4) Why are some tides missing?
"Hi , I would like to know why there are some blanks on tides..."
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On average, the recurrence of a tide of the same phase and similar rise takes place at an interval of 24 hours 50 minutes after the preceding occurrence. Which means the "tide day" is not exactly the same as our 24 hour day.

The result is that 4 or 5 times a month one of the high or low tides will "skip a day." Take a look at Boston March tides - marbos06.html

Notice on Wednesday the 15th the 1st high is at 11:35 in the morning and the second is 11:53pm (7 minutes before midnight).

On the following day (the 16th) the previous 11:35am tide becomes a 12:11pm tide. While the previous 11:53pm tide doesn't reoccur until 12:25am (25 minutes after midnight) on the 17th.

Therefore no am high tide on the 16th. However, notice that the actual time between 11:53pm on the 15th and 12:25am on the 17th is only 24 hours and 32 minutes - close to the average of a tidal day.

Another tip off - notice the tide heights as they switch from am to pm or vise-versa.

5) Why isn't the chart there?
"There is a problem with the February tide chart for Barnstable..."
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Well, it's certainly possible. But we just checked it from 2 different machines and it looked ok. What specifically is the problem?
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"...All the Cape Cod Tide Charts for February that I have tried work fine except Barnstable. The top banner headings are OK. After that here is what I get...(nothing)...strange..."
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Yep, I'd say it was strange. It's always possible to introduce an HTML error - so I just ran the page through an off-site checker which indicated no HTML errors.

My guess is that when you originally tried to load the chart something interrupted the load and now you have that partial chart in your browser cache. First try just reloading (go to it and then hit your refresh button) the chart. If that fails try clearing your browser cache - Tools/Internet Options - delete temporary internet files. And then try again.

Good luck - aren't computers a wonder ;-)
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"...cleared the cache...It worked!..."

6) How can I find Spring and Neap tides?
"I'm trying to find a chart that shows when the Spring and Neap tides are in my area..."
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Spring Tide - Also known as perigean, a tide that occurs during or after a new Moon. The spring tide is normally the highest tide of the month.

Neap Tide - Tides of decreased range occurring semimonthly as the result of the Moon being in quadrature.

So, for practical purposes, Spring tide is usually the highest high tide of the month and Neap is the lowest. Looking at our charts you can see that the highest tides are around the New and Full moon and lowest around the 1st and 3rd quarter moon.

7) May we place a link to the New Bedford tide chart?
"... I was wondering if it is ok if I put a link to the New Bedford tide chart from my page as it is the best tide chart that I've found."
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Thank you! We would very much like a link to our tide charts on your site.

But we'd rather you didn't link directly to a specific chart. We've been through this and what happens is either the webmaster forgets to update the link at the end of the month (ok, you wouldn't forget but some do) or the viewer bookmarks the link and then at the end of the month sends us a nasty e-mail wanting to know why we haven't updated the chart.

So please consider linking to the Buzzards Bay Tide Chart index page instead - you will not have to update the URL each month as the clickable maps on our index pages are always the current month. And we won't get those emails. ;-)

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