Enter one reference high tide and the daily high-tide lag, and this page lays out the two low tides and two high tides that follow over roughly the next day, with their clock times. It is for the moment on the water when you only need to know when the water next turns.
The arithmetic is two lines. It assumes a semidiurnal tide, with two highs and two lows per lunar day: the gap from one high tide to the next is (24 hours + the lag you entered) / 2, and the gap from a high tide to the following low tide is half of that again. With a 50-minute lag, that is 12 h 25 min high to high and 6 h 12.5 min high to low. The lag is never hard-coded; you supply the value you read in a tide table, because no single official lag applies to every coastline. When a time crosses midnight, the day column shows how many days later it falls. Current as of October 2026.
Tide-stage names and numbers and tide heights are not covered, because naming systems differ by region and height needs a station-specific chart datum. For real decisions, let the published tide table for your own station, such as one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, take precedence. The figures here assume the lag holds steady all day and are approximations.
Frequently Asked Questions
In a published tide table for your station, such as one from NOAA, compare the first high tide today with the first high tide tomorrow and take the difference. It is often around 50 minutes, but no single official lag applies to every coastline.
On most U.S. coasts tides are semidiurnal or mixed, so there are usually two high tides and two low tides a day. High to next high is (24 hours + daily lag) / 2, about 12 h 25 min, and high to low is half of that, about 6 h 12 min. Some places, such as parts of the Gulf of Mexico, have only one high a day, so check your station's tide table.
It does not. Regional tide-stage naming systems differ and no single official scheme covers them, so this page handles clock arithmetic only.
No. Height depends on a station-specific chart datum, so only times are calculated. Always let the tide table for your own station take precedence.