Malé, Maldives 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 09:00 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 Indian/Maldives local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Next spring tide on Mon 18 May (range 1.1m). Last neap on Sat 16 May. Next neap on Fri 22 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.

Malé is the capital of the Maldives and the densest small-island city in the world, occupying a 5.8-square-kilometre coral cay at the northern edge of Kaafu Atoll in the central Indian Ocean about 700 kilometres south-west of the Indian mainland. The Maldives is the lowest-lying nation on Earth — the average elevation is about 1.5 metres above mean sea level, the highest natural point on any island in the country is 2.4 metres, and roughly 80% of the 1,200 islands sit less than one metre above sea level. The country has been the most prominent voice in the UNFCCC Small Island Developing States bloc on sea-level rise since the 1989 Malé Declaration, and the 2009 underwater cabinet meeting that President Mohamed Nasheed convened on a coral reef to sign a climate-change document remains a defining international image of the existential threat. The tide here is a small mixed semidiurnal signal modulated by the atoll geometry: mean range at the Malé reference gauge is about 0.7 metres, climbing past 1.1 metres on the largest spring tides and dropping near 0.3 on neaps. Two highs and two lows of unequal size each day, with the asymmetry varying through the lunar month and the equatorial position keeping the seasonal cycle weak. The atoll lagoon hydrodynamics are distinctive — the ring of coral reef and the natural channels (kandus) between the islands concentrate tidal exchange, with currents through the deeper kandus exceeding two knots on the change of tide. The defining seasonal force is the monsoon. The iruvai north-east monsoon from December through April brings calmer weather on the western side of the atolls and the working dive season at the Banana Reef and HP reef sites; the hulhangu south-west monsoon from May through November drives swell, rain, and the surf season at the Pasta Point and Sultans breaks at the southern tip of North Malé Atoll about 8 kilometres south-east of Malé. Hulhumalé is the reclaimed island just north of Malé that the government built to provide a safer base for population growth — the new island sits about 2 metres above sea level and houses Velana International Airport, the Sinamale Bridge connection to Malé, and the long-term housing programme that targets a population of 240,000 by 2050. Resort dhonis crossing between the atoll islands, the working tuna fleet out of the Malé fish market on the northern waterfront, the airport seaplane operations between Velana and the outlying island resorts, the snorkellers and divers reading reef-shelf access at low water, and the surf charters out to Pasta Point and Sultans all read the table for different windows. The Maldives Meteorological Service and the National Bureau of Statistics publish the authoritative tide tables; Open-Meteo Marine drives the gridded predictions on this page.