World tidal ranges

 I was curious to learn about what the tidal ranges (High to low tide fall/rise) around my area were. Then found a good GIS website with the data for the entire world. It's color coded and just click on an area to see how much tide they contend with. (Now we know another reason why the mediterranean sea is so nice)

World tidal ranges - ARCGIS map viewer

Australia - tidal ranges map

World tidal ranges GISmap

It's easy to use. Just scroll mouse to zoom in-out. Pan by holding left mouse button down and move. To see tide range box in area of interest, move arrow to area, left click mouse button.

I'm interested in tidal ranges, mainly for anchoring and tidal current purposes when out sailing. Or if trailering long distances to new cruising grounds around the australian continent/big island.

Around my sailing area, Townsville it's about 3.2m medium range on average. Cairns 2.6m. Northern Whitsundays 3.7m. Mackay/southern whitsunday islands is high range at 5.7m. Kepple Island/rockhampton >5m (and between the last two it's higher..maxing out at 12m top of shoalwater bay!)

Further south Standy staights-Brisbane, its ok/medium again 2-3m range.

Sydney around 1.7m, nice!

Melbourne, Port Philip Bay and around Hobart, Tasmania it's low range, just 1.2m , nicer!

Tide range Port Philip Bay, Melbourne, Victoria is 1.2m (and Bass Straight ~3m)

Perth WA, even lower range, only 0.8m, brilliant.

The remote North West coasts of WA (and NT) have huge tidal ranges (7-12m). Even Darwin, NT is around 7m.

Across the Tasman sea in New Zealand, it's pretty good, moderate to low ranges, on the east coast (best sailing side). Auckland has 2.4m or so. Other areas its low-med range, 1.0m at Wellington. Christchurch-Dunedin, South Island <2.0m.

NZ tide ranges

Mid-pacific Ocean has a 0.3 (One foot) very low range tide zone. It covers Cook Islands and Tahiti (French). Another good reason these are favorite tourist dream destinations with picture postcard beach scenery. 

Mid South Pacific ocean, "one foot" tide zone.

European Tide ranges map

The Med, Baltic and Black seas (and Red sea, off map) are have low tide ranges <1m. UK has high ranges, (so alot of bilge keel boats and crusty old salts over there, ;-))

North to Central American tidal ranges map

Nice low ranges in the Carribean and Gulf of Mexico (Another good reason for enginless square-riggers favoring this area in the Pirates of the Carribean era, less chance of wrecking a ship, argh!). Good on the US east coast (except Bay of Fundy, worlds highest range?). West coast US is moderate range mostly, but it gets med-high range up in BC Canada.

SE Asia tidal ranges map

Nice low range tides in the sea of Japan.  High ranges on Western Korean peninsula and Eastern China. Moderate to low ranges elsewhere in SE Asia.