Chennai (Marina), Tamil Nadu 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 09:30 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/Kolkata local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Last spring tide on Sat 16 May (range 1.2m). Next neap on Sun 17 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.

Chennai fronts the western Bay of Bengal on India's south-eastern coast, with the Marina Beach reference shoreline running 13 kilometres from the Cooum river mouth at Triplicane south past the Chepauk cricket ground, the Madras Lighthouse, and the Foreshore Estate to the Adyar river estuary at Besant Nagar. Marina is the second-longest urban beach in the world after Cox's Bazar across the bay in Bangladesh, and the wide sand widens by tens of metres at low water. The tide here is a moderate mixed semidiurnal signal — two highs and two lows of unequal size most days, the asymmetry varying through the lunar month — with a smaller range than the Arabian Sea side at Mumbai. Mean range at the Chennai harbour gauge is about 1.0 metre, climbing past 1.5 metres on spring tides and dropping near 0.5 on neaps. The defining hazard is the cyclone season — the post-monsoon period from October through December produces several Bay of Bengal cyclones each year, and storm surge during landfall can stack two to four metres above predicted; Cyclone Vardah (2016), Gaja (2018), and Mandous (2022) each caused significant coastal damage to the Tamil Nadu shoreline. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which hit Marina Beach as a separate non-tidal event, killed thousands along this coastline and remains the largest natural disaster in the city's modern history. Mahabalipuram south of Chennai has the Pancha Rathas and the Shore Temple sitting on the immediate beachfront, and the lowest spring lows briefly expose submerged sculpture remnants offshore that locals identify with the lost city of the Seven Pagodas. Marina fishing fleets at Royapuram, the working container terminal at Ennore, the long sand at Besant Nagar, and the surf breaks at Kovalam south of the city all read the table for different windows. Open-Meteo Marine drives the gridded predictions on this page; for authoritative Indian tide data, the Survey of India and the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) publish the official tide tables.