Mobile River entrance tidal current predictions

Next slack

9:37 AMCDT

Next max flood

0.2 ktSun 8:06 PM

Next max ebb

0.3 ktSun 6:56 AM

Knots along the channel: above the line the flood, running in toward NNW (333°); below it the ebb, running out toward SSE (151°). Times are Central Daylight Time. Today: slack 9:37 AM, slack 3:10 PM, slack 8:52 PM.

None right now. The National Weather Service issues small craft advisories, gale and storm warnings, special marine warnings, dense fog advisories and coastal flood products for water like this.

The flood is the tidal current running in from the sea, the ebb the current running back out. Slack water is the short turn between them, when the current is weakest: the time to cross a strong channel, anchor, or dive. Slack in a channel is not the time of high or low tide; it can come hours after.

Speeds are knots along the channel's main axis, and directions are degrees true toward which the water flows, as NOAA prints its tables. A current against the wind stands the waves up steep and close together.

Predictions are astronomical: the moon and the sun, not the weather. Strong wind, river flow after heavy rain and storm surge all change the real current. This is a subordinate station: NOAA predicts it from a nearby harmonic station by fixed corrections to the times and speeds of its slack waters and maxima, so the curve between them is less exact.

• Tensaw River entrance (bridge)Subordinate current station1.5 mi
• Channel, 6 miles N of Mobile PointSubordinate current station23 mi

• Tide times at Coast Guard Sector Mobile 2.0 mi
• Tide times at Mobile State Docks 2.4 mi
• Tide times at Meaher State Park, Mobile Bay 5.8 mi
• Forecast for Mobile, AL
• Open the live map with tidal currents
• All tidal current stations in Alabama

Tidal current predictions from NOAA’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS), station ACT8741, bin 1: original at NOAA. Marine alerts from the National Weather Service.