Sea Level Rise in Tampa — Tampa, Florida

The long record for Tampa Bay comes from a single instrument across the water from downtown Tampa: the NOAA tide gauge at St. Petersburg, station 8726520. The NOAA sea level trend data for that station runs from January 1947 through December 2025 and shows a trend of 1.23 inches per decade. Over those 78 years the trend works out to roughly nine and a half inches of higher water, a record that serves as the baseline for every shoreline in Tampa Bay, from the mouth of the Hillsborough River to Old Tampa Bay.

Local scientists cite the same gauge. In a January 2021 WMNF report on the City of Tampa study, a Tampa Bay Estuary Program planner said 7.8 inches of rise had been measured at the St. Petersburg tide gauge since 1946. 83 Degrees Media described the older record in March 2016 the same way: Tampa Bay waters had risen at an average of about an inch per decade, a rate that appeared to be increasing.

The station itself was modernized that year. NOAA engineers replaced the aging gauge at the Coast Guard station on Bayboro Harbor with a microwave sensor that reads the level of Tampa Bay once a second and relays data by satellite every six minutes. 83 Degrees Media reported that Port Tampa Bay, the U.S. Coast Guard, University of South Florida oceanographers and insurers all draw on the readings, and that the panel of regional scientists uses the gauge to correct global models for local conditions in Tampa Bay.

Tampa does not write its own forecast. The projections the city plans around come from the Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel, known as CSAP, which 83 Degrees Media reports was formed in early 2014 by scientists who wanted one shared set of numbers for the four counties around Tampa Bay. Its first projections, released that year, ranged anywhere from one foot to seven feet of rise by 2100. In late 2014 the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, whose members include elected leaders from Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Manatee counties, agreed to adopt them for regional planning.

The panel revised the range in May 2019. Speaking to WMNF that month, the Tampa Bay Estuary Program coordinator who co-facilitates CSAP said the Tampa Bay region is likely to experience about two to eight-and-a-half feet of sea-level rise by the year 2100, with less than a one percent chance of exceeding the top curve. The USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, whose staff served on the panel, described the 2019 report as guidance for local governments around Tampa Bay to coordinate coastal adaptation.

The steeper curves rise quickly. WMNF reported in 2021 that under the high scenario, sea level around the bay area could rise nearly two feet by 2040 and close to four by 2060. The panel issued another update in 2025, and the CSAP figures published with it show three recommended sea level rise scenarios for St. Petersburg, FL based on regionally corrected NOAA 2022 curves. The Tampa Bay Estuary Program hosts a dashboard built for that update, plotting the St. Petersburg gage record against each Tampa Bay scenario.

The City of Tampa study described by WMNF in January 2021 found that rising water could encroach on open land, commercial, residential and historic properties in south Tampa, near the airport, downtown and along the Hillsborough River. A University of South Florida researcher on that study warned that the threat also moves underground: higher groundwater beneath South Tampa streets can produce sunny-day flooding without any rain.

The City of Tampa Vulnerability Assessment, completed in 2025, gives the elevation picture. Most of the city is at or above elevation 7 feet NAVD88, putting it above expected future sea elevations, yet decades of growth have pushed Tampa into low-lying areas, in some cases building new land over historic wetlands or oyster bars. The assessment adds that most of the city is above 5 feet NAVD88, but Hurricane Helene (2024), water elevations reached 8 feet NAVD88, a reminder that surge rides on top of whatever level Tampa Bay has reached.

The assessment ranks the threats by how often they arrive. Extreme rainfall, such as the 13 inches that fell on Tampa during Hurricane Milton, is the most frequent; sea level rise is slower but will combine with seasonal storm surge to damage neighborhoods along Hillsborough Bay and Old Tampa Bay. Because shoreline conditions vary along the Tampa coast, the City concludes that a uniform strategy will not work and that each stretch of coast needs its own approach.

The city's first dedicated study began with a state grant. In 2020, according to the City Planning Department, Tampa was awarded a $75,000 grant from the Florida Resilient Coastlines Program to study sea level rise and recommend changes to land use, zoning and building regulations. The project page lists the partners: the Florida Center for Community Design and Research at USF, the Hillsborough County Planning Commission and other agencies.

The Tampa study ran as a public series. A kickoff webinar on November 24 introduced the projections, a three-hour session on January 12 covered which areas of the city are most at risk, an April 7 webinar presented initial findings and regulatory options, and recommendations were presented on May 12. The work produced eight reports, from a background inventory to a Homeowners Guide and a Final Sea Level Rise Map. The City's summary finding is that deferring action will make future decision-making and adaptation more difficult.

The broader framework is Resilient Tampa, which Mayor Jane Castor released on May 27, 2021 as the city's first resilience roadmap. The City of Tampa announcement credits Whit Remer, Tampa's first Sustainability and Resilience Officer, with leading it, with support from the nonprofit Resilient Cities Catalyst. The roadmap includes 4 chapters, 13 goals and 58 actions, and its Climate-Ready Infrastructure chapter commits Tampa to strengthening existing and future infrastructure against climate-driven shocks. The 2025 vulnerability assessment, funded through the Resilient Florida program, now serves as the guide for ranking which Tampa projects to build first.

Tampa Bay's cities share one body of water, so a single set of curves lets Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Hillsborough County design bridges and stormwater pipes to the same assumptions. 83 Degrees Media reported that elected officials around Tampa Bay had worried about the width of the original one-to-seven-foot window when sizing costly infrastructure, and that CSAP planned to revisit its numbers as new national assessments appeared, which it did in 2019 and 2025.

The stakes for Tampa were spelled out early. 83 Degrees Media noted that in 2013 the World Bank named Tampa the 7th most at-risk metro in the world in terms of the overall cost of property damage from sea level rise. That ranking, along with Tampa Bay's long tide gauge record, helps explain why the City's 2020 study, the Resilient Tampa roadmap and the 2025 vulnerability assessment all start from the CSAP curves rather than a single national figure.