In a double tide the ocean reaches high or low tide, starts to fall or rise, only to go back to a new high or low. Here, we describe three ways this can happen by dividing locations with observed double tides into three classes. This showed that double tides are more common than we thought, and more complicated than most textbooks claim because they only describe one class of double tides. This matters to shipping, coastal flood management, and other disciplines interested in sea-level change.

Some places experience double high tides, where the tide starts to ebb for a short while, only to briefly flood again before finally receding. The result is a very long high tide with weak currents, and is important for navigational purposes. The existing theory for when and where double high tides occur does not always capture them, and it can only be applied to double highs occurring on a twice-daily tide. Here, the criterion has been generalized to capture all double high or low tides.