Te Waewae Bay 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 10:00 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 Pacific/Auckland local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Next spring tide on Wed 13 May (range 1.8m). Next neap on Sun 10 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.

Te Waewae Bay opens west along the bottom of the South Island toward the Foveaux Strait, the 38-kilometre channel between mainland New Zealand and Stewart Island (Rakiura). The bay stretches roughly 30 kilometres from the Waiau River mouth at its eastern end to the rocky headlands at Pahia Point and Te Waewae on the Longwood Range foothills to the west. This is the windward shore of Southland — the prevailing NW and SW winds arrive with a long Southern Ocean fetch, and the bay is fully exposed to swell when the Tasman Sea runs. Semidiurnal tidal regime; spring range at Riverton (Aparima) on the eastern end of the bay runs approximately 1.4 to 1.9 m. The Foveaux Strait modifies the tidal phase slightly compared with the open West Coast — the strait acts as a tidal throughway between the Tasman Sea and the Southern Ocean, and the timing at Te Waewae Bay reflects the combined effects of both basins. The Waiau River at the east end of the bay creates a river-bar crossing that is strongly influenced by tidal state; the bar shallows and steepens on the outgoing tide when river current and ebb run in the same direction. Shore anglers work the Waiau bar and the Te Waewae lagoon outlet for kahawai and sea-run brown trout; the incoming tide from about 2 hours before low water through mid-flood is the most productive window as fish move into the cleaner incoming water. Blue penguin (kororā) come ashore in the evening regardless of tide. The Hump Ridge Track passes along the western headlands above the bay; the exposed coastline from Rarakau Beach west toward Sandhill Point is accessible on foot at low water when the beach flats widen. Oystercatcher (tōrea) and Variable Oystercatcher (tōrea-pango) work the surf line at the Waiau bar. The bay's western end, between Pahia Point and Sandhill Point, is fronted by active sand dunes and receives the most direct Southern Ocean exposure; surf conditions here are predominantly swell-driven rather than tide-dependent, but the tidal state shifts the break location against the beach gradient. Tidal predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine, a gridded global ocean model. The model's typical accuracy envelope — plus or minus 45 minutes on timing and 0.2 to 0.3 metres on height — is a meaningful fraction of the predicted range at Te Waewae Bay. NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research) operates the Southland coastal tide gauge network; Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) publishes authoritative New Zealand tide tables for Riverton and Bluff, both within 30 kilometres of this bay.