Madeira Beach

Madeira Beach, Florida

Photo by Steve Harwood

Madeira Beach is a mixture of full-time and seasonal residents as well as more tourist focused businesses. Madeira Beach has several beach accesses including a dedicated lot with metered parking. Like most Gulf Coast beaches, waves are very small so surfing is rare; however, skim boarding and boogy boarding is common.

Madeira Beach has many beach restaurants and bars as well as simple beach shopping. There are many hotels, condos, and beach cottages. This is a fun beach with lots to do, but can be very busy during tourist season.

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Water Quality

Passed water quality tests 60-95% of the time
Historical Status
This status is based on the latest sample, taken on October 24th, 2022. Tampa Bay Waterkeeper updates the status of this beach as soon as test results become available. These results were posted to Swim Guide on November 10th, 2022 at 6:59 AM.

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Current Weather

23°C

Clear

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Monitoring Frequency

Source Information

Water quality results displayed at this location were collected by the City of St. Petersburg Environmental Compliance Division. Weekly testing is conducted on Wednesday and results are usually posted on Thursday. If the test indicates sub-par water quality, testing will be performed again the following day. Results of the second test will be posted on Friday. If the second test still indicates poor quality, an advisory will be issued for the sampling site.

City of St. Petersburg tests for levels of enterococci, a type of bacteria that indicates that pathogenic bacteria and viruses associated with fecal pollution may be present. These bacteria are known as fecal indicator bacteria (FIB).

Florida Administrative Code, based on the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s 2012 Recreational Water Quality Criteria have the following rating criteria: Good= 0-35 CFU/MPN enterococci / 100 mL of marine water; Moderate= 36-70 CFU/MPN enterococci / 100 mL of marine water; and Poor= 71 CFU/MPN or greater enterococci / 100 mL of marine water.

Swim Guide uses the thresholds for water quality based on the Florida Administrative Code.
A beach is marked green (pass) when the sample results are equal or below 70 Enterococci / 100 ML water. A beach is marked red(fail) when the sample results are above 70 Enterococci / 100 ML water, according to EPA water quality guidelines. Data more than a week old will revert to “historical status”; clicking the pie chart icon will reveal a summary of the prior yearly or monthly pass/fail data. A sampling location is marked grey when no current or reliable monitoring information is available.

Water Quality Graph