St Ives, Cornwall 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 05:00 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 Europe/London local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Next spring tide on Sun 17 May (range 6.4m / 20.9ft). 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.

St Ives sits on the north Cornish coast at the western end of St Ives Bay, with the working harbour and the long sand of Porthmeor on the open Atlantic side and the curve of Carbis Bay sweeping east toward Hayle Towans and the Hayle estuary mouth. The tide here runs the macrotidal Cornish signal: cleanly semidiurnal in pattern, with a large mean range of about 4.5 metres climbing past 6.5 on spring tides and dropping near 2.5 on neaps. The pattern is two highs and two lows of comparable size each day, twelve and a half hours apart. That swing transforms the day on every coast in Cornwall, and St Ives is no exception — the harbour at Smeaton's Pier dries out completely on spring lows, with the local fishing fleet sitting on the sand for hours, and the wide expanse of Porthminster and Porthmeor sands widens by tens of metres at the bottom of the cycle. The Hayle estuary across the bay drains almost completely on each ebb to a thin channel and refills over a four-hour flood, and the inner saltmarsh at Lelant becomes a network of tidal creeks rather than a single waterway. Surfers reading Porthmeor for the lowest tides of the month find the bottom contour reshaped from a peaky beach break to a longer left-handed wall. The Tate St Ives sits directly behind Porthmeor and the gallery's view changes through every tide. Lowest spring lows around new and full moons open the rocky shore at the Island and the cliff base east of the harbour for tidepooling — the granite intertidal at the western tip of Cornwall is among the best in southern England. UK Hydrographic Office Admiralty TotalTide is the authoritative British tide product; Open-Meteo Marine drives the gridded predictions on this page.