Tampa (St Petersburg), FL tide times

The hero block shows the next high tide at the St Petersburg reference gauge in local Eastern time (EST in winter, EDT in summer). The 7-day table covers all the highs and lows. High water at the Tampa city port across the bay arrives a few minutes after St Petersburg; at the bay mouth near Egmont Key it leads by about half an hour.

Mean range at the St Petersburg gauge is about 0.6 metres, climbing past 1.0 metre on the largest spring tides and dropping near flat on neaps. The pattern is mixed — most days produce two highs and two lows of unequal size, but at certain points in the lunar month it shifts toward strongly diurnal with a single dominant high-low cycle.

NOAA CO-OPS station 8726520 at St Petersburg, the canonical Tampa Bay reference. NOAA computes predictions through harmonic analysis of decades of measured water levels at this exact gauge. That is the gold-standard method for tide prediction in US waters under normal weather; tropical-cyclone surge overrides the harmonic signal.

Hurricane season runs June through November and tropical-storm surge can lift water levels two metres or more above predicted. Hurricane Idalia (2023) drove a 1.5-metre surge at the gauge despite making landfall well to the north. A direct major-hurricane hit on Tampa Bay — long modelled, not yet realised — would push the figure substantially higher because the bay's geometry funnels storm surge toward the inner ports.

No. For piloting in or out of Tampa Bay, transiting the Sunshine Skyway approach, or working the inner ports use NOAA's authoritative chart products, the Tampa Bay Pilots' guidance, the National Hurricane Center forecasts during tropical season, and the local notices to mariners. The Skyway bridge fender system stops ship strikes; the tide does not.