Stralsund tide times

Stralsund stands on the Strelasund — the narrow strait between the mainland of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the island of Rügen — and its mediaeval brick-Gothic old town has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2002, sharing that designation with Wismar to the west as an outstanding example of Hanseatic brick-Gothic civic architecture. The Marienkirche, the Nikolaikirche, and the Rathaus on the Alter Markt are all 14th-century construction; the scale and survival of the ensemble in the centre of a small city is remarkable. The Baltic Sea is microtidal.

3 metres — essentially the same as the Mediterranean, and for the same reason: a nearly enclosed sea with restricted connection to the Atlantic tidal source. The narrow Danish Straits (Øresund, Store Bælt, Lille Bælt) are the only connection to the North Sea and they attenuate the tidal signal to near-zero by the time it propagates into the eastern Baltic. The dominant driver of water level at Stralsund is not the tide — it is wind and atmospheric pressure.

During persistent NE gales, wind setup can raise the Stralsund quayside water level by 1 metre or more above the normal astronomic prediction. These are Sturmflut events — storm surge floods — and the risk is real: the old town quaysides, the waterfront streets, and the lower-lying areas between the Strelasund and the historic centre flood during significant NE storm events. The Ozeaneum, the marine science museum and aquarium on the northern edge of the old town, opened in 2008 and won the OSPAR Commission's Maritime Award for sustainable architecture.

It holds exhibitions on the Baltic Sea ecosystem and the North Sea, including live tanks with Baltic and North Sea species — sharks, rays, herring, cod, flatfish — in a building that incorporates the waterfront directly into its spatial concept. It is part of the Deutsches Meeresmuseum, which also operates the historic Katharinenkloster (St Catherine's Monastery) museum in the old town. The Rügenbrücke — the Rügen Bridge — connects Stralsund to Rügen island, opened in 2007 with a main span of 128 metres and a clearance of 42 metres for shipping transiting the Strelasund.

Before its opening, the only road access to Rügen was the Rügendamm causeway built in 1937; the bridge now carries the majority of the traffic. The Strelasund beneath the bridges carries tidal exchange between the western Baltic and the bays north of Rügen (Greifswalder Bodde, Kleines Haff), and despite the low astronomical range, the currents in the strait are wind-driven and can run at 1 to 2 knots in sustained onshore gales. The waterways around Stralsund are a productive cruising ground for Baltic sailing and motorboat tourism.

The low tidal range means no locks, no tidal-window constraints, and the ability to go alongside almost any berth at any time — a fundamental contrast with the macrotidal Atlantic coasts. The Bodden waterways behind Rügen and Hiddensee are navigable on flat-bottomed shallow-draft vessels at any state of weather and are among the most sheltered sailing waters in Germany. Amber collecting on the Baltic beach is an occasional reward; amber washing up on Rügen beaches comes from submarine deposits of Eocene-age resin exposed on the seabed and transported by storms.

The correlation is with sea state after significant NW storms rather than with any tidal signal. Predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine, a gridded global ocean model. 3 metres on height — model-derived, not from a local gauge.

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