New Zealand beach weather, tides and surf

New Zealand has semi-diurnal tides — two highs and two lows a day, 12 hours 25 minutes apart. Each high runs about 50 minutes later than the day before, so a tide time from yesterday is already wrong today, and one from last week is out by around six hours.

Range varies widely around the coast. Across LINZ's 66 tide stations, spring range runs from 3.7 m at Nelson to 1.2 m at Wellington — the same tide moving three times the water. The northern harbours and the top of the South Island have the largest range, Cook Strait the smallest.

Tide times also shift along a coast as the wave travels around the country. Each beach page names the station its predictions come from and the distance to it, so you can judge how closely they apply.