The NTSLF has a new web site (from December 2012) which provides:
(left above) Tidal Table predictions for Southampton (and for other sites including Portsmouth) for the coming 28 days and together with a diagram showing the next 7 days tides.
(centre above) a forecast of how much the actual tide will differ from the value shown in the Tide Table is available for Portsmouth and
Bournemouth. Most of this difference is due to the expected weather conditions (mainly the air pressure) so this "surge forecast" only covers the next day or two.
(right above) the sea level gauges at Bournemouth and Portsmouth show time series of the predicted Tide Table value and, for comparison, what the present water level really is.
Since the first high water at Bournemouth preceeds that at Southampton by about 2.5 hours it can be used as a warning that the actual tide might be higher than predicted. Experience has shown that taking the excess over the predicted high tide level at Bournemouth and multiplying by a factor of around 1.3 gives a good estimate of the likely excess at Southampton.
The TideTimes web site powers our Todays Tide popup window. The site is useful for tidal predictions outside the 28 day period on the NTSLF web site. In contrast the Hydrographic Office "Easy Tide" web site only gives free tidal predictions for the next 7 days; for other times you have to pay. Various applications are available to run on your computer or mobile device. I use Mr Tides on my iMac - however be aware that these tidal prediction applications may use fewer components for the tidal calculations and may be less accurate than the other web sites listed here.
[Values in the top banner are updated every 10 minutes, refresh your browser to see the latest]
