Wellington Tide ChartWellington Harbour, Cook Strait

High tide in Wellington today is at 10:00 am (1.6 m) and 10:31 pm (1.5 m). The 10:00 am high of 1.6 m is the larger of the two — that difference between the day's two highs is called diurnal inequality and is normal here.

Low tide in Wellington today is at 3:56 am (0.7 m) and 4:28 pm (0.7 m).

Today's range in Wellington — the difference between the day's highest high and lowest low — is 0.9 m. The average over the next two weeks is 0.9 m, so today is below-average. Range varies through the month on the spring–neap cycle.

This week is a neap tide period in Wellington — predicted daily ranges are at or near their smallest of the cycle. Spring tides bring the largest ranges and the strongest currents; neap tides the smallest. This is worked out from the predicted water levels themselves rather than from moon phase, which does not always line up.

Wellington has a mixed semi-diurnal tide: two highs and two lows a day, but the two highs are noticeably unequal — averaging about 0.1 m apart. That inequality is normal and predictable.

Sunrise in Wellington today is at 6:31 am and sunset is at 7:42 pm. The moon is waxing crescent, 30% illuminated.

All heights on this page are in metres above CD (chart datum), the chart datum LINZ references New Zealand tide predictions to. A predicted height of 0.0 m means water at the datum, not a dry bottom — and negative predictions do occur on the biggest spring lows.

They are astronomical predictions from harmonic constituents published by LINZ for the Wellington station, the same constituents LINZ computes its own published tide tables from. They account for the motion of the sun and moon but not for weather. Sustained wind, barometric pressure and river flow can all push real water levels above or below the prediction, sometimes by a third of a metre or more in a strong blow.

Wellington sits close to a point where the main semi-diurnal tide wave largely cancels out, so the harbour rises and falls by only about a metre on a typical day — between roughly 0.8 and 1.4 metres across the spring–neap cycle. That is around a third of Auckland's swing and the smallest of any main New Zealand port. It is a feature of where Wellington sits relative to the tide wave, not of the harbour itself.

No, and the gap is close to a half-cycle. High water at Nelson arrives about 4 hours 45 minutes after high water at Wellington, and Nelson's range is much larger — roughly 1.3 to 3.9 metres against Wellington's 0.8 to 1.4. Two adjacent bodies of water that far out of step is precisely what drives the strong tidal streams through Cook Strait.

No. This page gives high and low water for Wellington Harbour, which is a poor guide to what the water is doing in the strait. The streams there are driven by the difference between the two ends of the strait rather than by the harbour's own one-metre rise, and they are strong. Use tidal stream information and a marine forecast for a crossing, alongside your own vessel's limits.

They are computed from the harmonic constituents that Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand publishes for the Wellington tide station — the same constituent set LINZ uses for its own published tide tables. We run our own prediction from them rather than reproducing LINZ's tables, and we check the result against those tables before publishing.

Yes. The free SeaLegs AI app gives tide predictions plus wind, wave and an AI-rated GO / CAUTION / NO-GO call for any spot you drop a pin on — not just listed stations.

As of October 15, 2026, the satellite-measured sea surface temperature near Wellington is about 57°F, and it has warmed about 1°F over the past 6 days. The water temperature readings on this page come from the SeaLegs AI DeepCast satellite pipeline and are refreshed every morning.