Submarius
Miami sea conditions, in one place.
Miami packs three very different waters into a few miles: the shallow flats of Biscayne Bay, the Atlantic just past Government Cut with its wrecks and artificial reefs, and the Gulf Stream edge a short run offshore, where sailfish and mahi pass through all year.
Submarius puts what you check before heading out in one app: wind and gusts, swell and waves, NOAA tide predictions, water temperature, rain radar and National Weather Service marine warnings. The dive modes add regional surface current with the next slack. Pro adds the mapped reefs and wrecks off Miami, NOAA charts and the 8 day forecast.
Choose your activity
Outer reef tracts, ledges off Haulover, and blue water runs from the inlets. Swell, current, tide, moon and a visibility estimate on one screen.
Artificial reefs, deep wrecks and the natural reef tract. Surface conditions, regional current and a visibility estimate for the spot you pick.
Bonefish on the flats, tarpon in Government Cut, sailfish and mahi offshore. A bite score from light, moonlight, how fast the tide is moving, water temperature extremes, wind and waves, plus the habitat under your pin where there's seabed data. Pressure and its 6 hour trend get a tile of their own.
How the bite score works. Nearby: Fort Lauderdale diving, Pompano Beach spearfishing and Key Largo diving.
How Miami's ocean actually behaves
Three zones run through almost every conditions question for Miami:
- Biscayne Bay and the flats. Shallow, driven by the tide, and sensitive to rainfall and sediment pushed off the shoreline. Tide stage governs visibility and fish behavior here more than anywhere else in the region.
- The inlet zone (Government Cut, Haulover). Passes with strong current where bay water and ocean water exchange. Bonito, tarpon, snook and jacks concentrate here on moving tides.
- The outer reef and Gulf Stream edge. Typically clearer water, stable temperatures, and pelagic traffic when the Stream pushes close to shore. Ledges at 60 to 120 ft hold the full reef fish complex plus amberjack and grouper that stick to structure.
Submarius pulls conditions for the point you pick rather than one number for the whole city. Wind, swell and current come from forecast models that work in cells a few kilometers or more across, so read them as the picture around your spot, not a single ledge. In the bay and the inlets, your own read of the tide and the water still counts for a lot.
Visibility off Miami
Visibility here can change by tens of feet from one day to the next. Strong incoming tides can lift sediment off the Biscayne flats and spread it across the inshore reef. Sustained easterly winds stir up the outer reef. Heavy rain pushes runoff out through the inlets. None of that shows up in a wave height number.
In Spearfishing, Scuba and Freediving modes the app shows a visibility estimate with a confidence figure next to the swell, wind and tide. It's a model estimate, not a measurement. It starts from the spot's typical clarity for the month and adjusts for how hard waves are working the bottom and for the tide, so weigh it against what you see when you get there.
How the visibility estimate works →Safety in Miami's water
Miami is shark country all year. With Spearfishing as your mode, the Today screen shows a shark awareness card listing the species that Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) records place in the area, for awareness, not live positions, along with community sightings from the last 48 hours. Signed in users can report a sighting, and app users within 25 km get a push.
Safety Watch lets you file a plan with a "back by" time and pick who watches. If you don't check in, the server alerts them, even if your phone is dead or out of signal. While a plan is open, its SOS button goes to your contacts after a 5 second cancel window. Safety Watch needs a free account, and every safety tool is free, whatever plan you're on.
Common questions
Open Miami in the Submarius app on iOS, Android or the web, or set your location to your exact spot. The Today screen shows wind, waves and swell, the tide curve from NOAA tide predictions, water temperature, and a 0 to 10 rating for your activity with every factor shown. Active National Weather Service warnings for the Miami coastal waters show as a warning band and cap the rating, and the hour drawer plays the last hour of rain radar.
Yes. Set your location to Haulover and Submarius shows wind, gusts, waves, swell, tide and rain for that point, hour by hour for the next 12 hours, plus the best 3 hour window in the next 24. Pro extends the forecast to 8 days. It's a wind and wave forecast from weather models, not the National Weather Service text forecast, but active NWS marine warnings for the zone show up as a warning band.
Yes, in Spearfishing, Scuba and Freediving modes. The current tile shows drift in knots, the direction it's setting and the next slack. It comes from a global ocean model with cells about 25 km across, so it shows regional flow, like the Gulf Stream pushing north offshore, not the current inside one inlet or over one ledge. In Government Cut and Haulover, the tide timing is usually the better guide.
Spearfishing, scuba diving and saltwater fishing have their own Miami pages with conditions for each one. In the app you can also pick Freediving, Boating, Sailing, Surfing, Kayak or SUP, or Clamming, and add how you get out there (Boating, Sailing, or Kayak or SUP) so the day's rating is only as good as the weaker of the two. The mapped reefs and wrecks off Miami are a Pro map layer, along with NOAA charts and bathymetry.
Yes, here and everywhere else. Safety Watch with its SOS button, the shark awareness card (shown when Spearfishing is your mode) and sighting reports are free for every user and never gated behind Pro. Safety Watch, SOS and reporting a sighting need a free account. If you don't check in by the "back by" time you set, Safety Watch alerts the people you picked by push or email, even if your phone is dead or out of signal.
Ready to check Miami conditions?
Today's conditions, safety tools and trip recording are free. Pro adds the 8 day forecast, the Pro map layers, cam playback and offline areas for $12.99 a month or $99 a year, or $149 once.