Assateague Island, Tom's Cove South

Chincoteague Island, Virginia

Ocean swimming beach on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Just east of the quaint town of Chincoteague Island, VA is the Assateague National Seashore and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. There is an access road through the NWR to the ocean beach, with beach front parking. There is a daily fee to access the NWF and the oceanfront beach. Over Sand 4x4 access to points south of the swimming beach is by permit only. Pony sightings are frequent and Chincoteague is known for it's annual July roundup and auction of the wild ponies. The famous book "Misty of Chincoteague" was written about this area.

Get directions to this beach

Water Quality

No data available
Current Status
This status is based on the latest sample, taken on May 26th, 2023. Assateague Coastal Trust updates the status of this beach as soon as test results become available. These results were posted to Swim Guide on May 26th, 2023 at 11:57 AM.

For water quality icon legend, click:

Current Weather

20°C

Cloudy with a few clear breaks

Report Pollution

Monitoring Frequency

Source Information

The Virginia Department of Health (DOH) monitors water quality at beaches in this region from May to September. Water samples are collected and results posted weekly. Results are posted on the DOH website. Assateague Coastal Trust monitors the latest sample results posted by the Virginia DOH and publishes the results to Swim Guide each week.

A beach is marked Green when the level of enterococcus bacteria in the water is less than 104 units per 100 mL of water.
A beach is marked Red when the level of enterococcus bacteria in the water is higher than 104 units per 100 mL of water.
A beach is marked Grey when there is no current or reliable monitoring information available.

Water Quality Graph

Other Beaches Near This One

Beach	Location	Water Quality
Guard Shore Bloxom, Virginia	Bloxom, Virginia	Current Status
Public Landing Pier Snow Hill, Maryland	Snow Hill, Maryland	Current Status
Assateague Island, Tom's Cove North Chincoteague Island, Virginia	Chincoteague Island, Virginia	Current Status
Public Landing Beach Snow Hill, Maryland	Snow Hill, Maryland	Current Status

	Green means the beach’s most recent test results met relevant water quality standards.

	Red means the beach’s most recent test results failed to meet water quality standards.

	Grey means water quality information for the beach is too old (more than 7 days old) to be considered current, or that info is unavailable, or unreliable.

	Green means the beach passed water quality tests 95% of the time or more.

	Yellow means the beach passed water quality tests 60-95% of the time.

	Red means the beach failed water quality tests 40% of the time or more.

	This means that this site has been issued a Blue Flag status for the current swimming season. This status does not indicate current water quality.

	Red means the water at the site has water quality issues or there is an emergency.

	Grey means there is no current water quality information, the beach is under construction, there has been an event that has rendered water quality information unreliable or unavailable.