Qingdao tide times

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived.

Model-derived from a global ocean grid. Useful indication; expect about ±45 minutes on average vs. a local harmonic gauge, individual stations vary widely. See /methodology for per-region detail. Not for navigation.

Conditions as of 16:00 local time. Refreshes daily.

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived. · Not for navigation.

The angler tradition for major/minor fishing windows: major ≈3-hour windows around moon transit and opposition; minor ≈2-hour windows around moonrise and moonset. Times are Asia/Shanghai local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Next spring tide on Sun 03 May (range 3.1m). Last neap on Thu 30 Apr. Next neap on Wed 06 May.

Spring tides cluster around new and full moons (biggest swings). Neap tides land on quarter moons (smallest swings). See the spring tide and neap tide glossary entries for the why.

Qingdao faces the Yellow Sea from the southern tip of Shandong province, where the Laoshan mountain range drops steeply to the shore east of the city and the German colonial-era waterfront forms the western harbour district. The Zhanqiao Pier reaches into the bay from the old town, its double-roofed pavilion at the end recognisable across the Yellow Sea approaches, and the old German customs house and governor's residence still stand behind the red-roofed tile district the colonists built in the 1890s. The Tsingtao brewery, founded by German settlers in 1903 on the freshwater springs of Laoshan, sits a few minutes inland. The tide here is semidiurnal with a moderate Yellow Sea range. Mean range at the Qingdao harbour gauge is about 2.7 metres, and spring tides around new and full moons push toward 3.5 metres — a meaningfully large swing for a Yellow Sea port city. Two highs and two lows of comparable size each day, twelve and a half hours apart. The tidal flat exposure on the beaches south of Zhanqiao — including Number 1 Bathing Beach and Number 2 Bathing Beach — changes by tens of metres between high and low water on a spring tide; the same flat that holds swimmers at high water turns to a wide sand shelf at low. Laoshan mountain on the eastern headland channels the coastal wind, and the combination of the Yellow Sea spring tide and the Laoshan-influenced easterly swell makes Qingdao a credible wind-driven and small-wave coast. The city hosted the sailing events for the 2008 Beijing Olympics at the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center, and the centre still operates as the main sailing marina. For paddlers and small-boat operators, the change-of-tide slack between flood and ebb is the low-current window — about 30 to 45 minutes either side of the predicted high or low. Shore anglers along the granite headlands east of Zhanqiao and at the Laoshan coastal trail target the incoming tide in spring, when the Yellow Sea warming drives yellow croaker and Spanish mackerel toward the rocky bottom. The tidepool zone along the Laoshan coast holds sea urchins, chitons, and barnacle communities visible only during the lowest spring-tide lows, typically one to two hours either side of the predicted low on days when the range exceeds 3.0 metres. The predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine, a gridded global ocean model. Gridded models estimate tidal height across a geographic grid rather than computing from decades of measured harmonic data at a single gauge — accuracy is typically within plus or minus 45 minutes on timing and within roughly 0.5 metres on height. For commercial shipping and port scheduling at Qingdao, the China Maritime Safety Administration and the National Marine Data and Information Service (NMDIS) are the authoritative sources. The 2008 Olympic Sailing Center marina operations follow the Qingdao MSA port authority guidance.