Site Designations & Characteristics

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has designated the North Inlet- Winyah Bay (NI-WB) marsh-estuarine system as a National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) site. Please visit the NI-WB Web Site HERE.
• The North Inlet Estuary was designated a prime coastal ecosystem and an Experimental Ecological Reserve by the Institute of Ecology and the National Science Foundation
• North Inlet was selected as the initial marine-estuarine site in the National Science Foundation's nationwide Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LTER)
• Classification of North Inlet's waters as "SAA" by the state of South Carolina acknowledge that these are waters constituting an outstanding recreational or ecological resource.

Climate:

   The climate is temperate to subtropical, with a temperature range of -4 to +36 degrees Celsius. Winter temperatures are highly variable but generally mild. Ice occasionally forms on high marsh pools, but snow is a rare event. Rainfall is about 45 inches (114 cm) per year. Daytime temperatures are usually above 20 degrees C from May through November.

   All major temperate coastal habitats - tidal salt marsh, creeks, beaches, jetties, maritime forest, swamps, brackish and freshwater marshes, old rice fields, and various upland habitats - are represented on Hobcaw. More than 1,200 ha of brackish and freshwater marshes, which were formerly cultivated rice fields, border the Winyah Bay side of Hobcaw.

   North Inlet has a semidiurnal tide with maximum amplitude of 2.2 m, a temperature range of 4 to 32 degrees C, and salinities that are usually greater than 28 ppt in the major waterways. Shallow ocean habitats are adjacent to North Inlet.