River traffic. The Piscataqua River is a swift tidal river. When the tide comes in (right to left <--- above), it reverses the river's normal flow. Travel by tankers and other large vessels is restricted to slack tide, when the current is more or less zero. See the chart below for slack tide times at the entrance to Portsmouth Harbor (map), which is roughly three miles downstream.

Piscataqua River Currents
Sat 02:28am    Moonset
Sat 02:37am    -1.73 knots Max Ebb
Sat 05:09am    Sunrise
Sat 05:55am    0.00 knots Slack, Flood Begins
Sat 09:42am    0.75 knots Max Flood
Sat 11:25am    -0.00 knots Slack, Ebb Begins
Sat 02:18pm    -1.39 knots Max Ebb
Sat 05:49pm    0.00 knots Slack, Flood Begins
Sat 06:40pm    Moonrise
Sat 07:51pm    0.94 knots Max Flood
Sat 08:25pm    Sunset
Sat 09:10pm    0.89 knots Min Flood
Sat 09:37pm    0.89 knots Max Flood
Sat 11:46pm    -0.00 knots Slack, Ebb Begins
Sun 03:15am    Moonset
Sun 03:20am    -1.76 knots Max Ebb
Sun 05:09am    Sunrise
Sun 06:44am    0.00 knots Slack, Flood Begins
Sun 10:31am    0.76 knots Max Flood
Sun 12:16pm    -0.00 knots Slack, Ebb Begins
Sun 03:02pm    -1.37 knots Max Ebb
Sun 06:36pm    0.00 knots Slack, Flood Begins
Sun 07:30pm    Moonrise
Sun 08:24pm    Sunset
Sun 08:35pm    0.96 knots Max Flood

Current Conditions

New Hampshire-Maine border. The N.H.-Maine border lies in the middle of the Piscataqua River. Its exact location was the subject of a long-running dispute settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Piscataqua River. This Piscataqua River is a 13-mile long tidal estuary formed by merging of the Salmon and Cocheco rivers. The river, which separates Maine and New Hampshire, also drains Great Bay, a National Estuarine Research Reserve site. The last 8.8 miles of the Piscataqua River constitute Portsmouth Harbor, which stretches across New Castle, Portsmouth, and Newington, and the Maine communities of Kittery and Eliot.

Currents. The swift currents of the Piscataqua River make Portsmouth Harbor one of the fastest flowing commercial port waterways in the northeastern United States. The ice-free deep-water channel has been used for shipping since the 1600s.

Points of Interest
1. Moran Towing tugboats
2. Public benches
3. Ferry Landing restaurant
4. Tug Alley Too tugboat
5. Memorial Bridge
6. Portsmouth Naval Shipyard
7. Badger's Island, Kittery, Maine

What kind of name is Piscataqua (Piss-cat-a-qua)? Easy for you to say, but not so easy to spell. See an extended examination of the origin of the word at SeacoastNH.com and 20 ways to spell Piscataqua.

More information. For more about the Piscataqua River, see the Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources web page.