Tide predictions are available here
- Please note time is reported in UTC.
- Inishmore is offline pending the completion of port development works.
The Irish National Tide Gauge Network is an on-going development involving the Marine Institute and a number of organisations in the public and private sectors to develop a permanent tidal monitoring infrastructure, ultimately consisting off between 35 and 40 stations. The project is currently entering year 5 of an anticipated 10 year programme.
The principle objectives are two fold:
- to involve local organisations (e.g. county councils) to assist them with local issues related to water level monitoring.
- to bring all operational tide gauges into a centrally managed national infrastructure.
Current activities include:
- Strategic development of the network to work with new parties enabling the full resolution of the tidal regime around Ireland.
- Roll out of GSM enabled data logging and telecommunications equipment for the central collection of data.
- High precision site surveys to enable all data to be reported relative to the national datum (ordnance survey datum Malin Head).
- Quality control of the stations to determine what outstanding work is required to get the best possible data.
The products from the network are wide-ranging and will be available as work progresses:
- Real-time data to an Internet site to support recreational users, navigation and commercial activities.
- Tidal predictions, both in the form of software tools and paper publications.
- Flood warning.
- Long term sea level variability.
For more information please contact us at institute.mail@marine.ie
For detail about the meta data and real time FTP site access please see the information file.
Current active nodes on the Irish National Tide Gauge Network
(Updated 25/June/2010)
Please Note:
Target areas for new stations
We are consulting with all relevant parties far and wide as to where new stations should be. Attached is the current list of stations (Word, 22.5KB). Please get in touch if you (1) have any thoughts as to why stations should be added / removed and (2) if you wish to open discussions as to how we can get a water level station in place in your locality.
Tidal flows around Ireland
The spring tidal ranges experienced over the Celtic Seas region are shown in Figure 1A. In the open Atlantic tidal waves are generally small but they increase as they move eastwards across the shelf and are further enhanced by the funnelling effect of bays and estuaries. Thus, for example, halfway up the Shannon Estuary on Ireland's West Coast the average tide is 4.5m but at the head of the estuary it is almost 1m higher.
The general flow of tidal waves in Irish waters is shown in Figure 1(B). These propagate from both north and south, meeting just south-west of the Isle of Man at an amphidromic point (a point at which there is no variability in depth due to tidal activity). There is another amphidromic point south of Islay on the Malin Shelf.
Tidal ranges on the Malin Shelf from 0.5m on a neap tide (1m on a spring tide) in the Sound of Jura just south of the amphidromic point south of Islay, to 1.6m on a neap tide (4.5m on a spring). Further offshore and north of Skye the tidal range is reduced. Within the Irish Sea maximum tidal ranges occur on the Lancashire and Cumbria coasts where the mean spring tides have a range of 8m, contrasting with Carnsore Point on the south eastern Irish coast where the range is only 1.75m.
Recording tidal data in Ireland
In Ireland direct recording of changes in tidal elevation is on going in most Irish ports although up to now continuous records have been rare. Many Irish Port Authorities report tidal data to Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory at Birkenhead in the UK on an ongoing basis.
Proudman publishes tidal information on the web for selected UK & Irish ports. All data is checked and validated. Predictions are compared to observed data to ensure quality and accuracy.
The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office also produce tidal predictions for Irish coastal locations, as part of a global prediction system catering for over 4000 ports world wide. 73 ports, harbours, towns, cities, bays, quays and headland sites around Ireland are included.