After a week full of rain and clouds in New Hampshire, you may be in the mood to spend a day at the beach this weekend.
However, if you’re planning a weekend beach trip, you’ll want to avoid the beaches with unsafe swimming water, as directed by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES). While the NHDES does not close waterbodies, it does recommend avoiding swimming in water contaminated with high levels of bacteria to avoid water-borne illness, especially in pets and young children.
Heading into this weekend, three New Hampshire beaches are under advisories for high bacteria levels. Here’s the full list.
What beaches in NH are currently under bacteria advisories?
Thousands of people went to Hampton Beach to try to cool off near the Atlantic Ocean as temperatures reached over 100 degrees June 24, 2025.
The following New Hampshire beaches, listed by town, are under bacteria advisories as of Friday, July 11 at 10 a.m.:
Hampton: Hampton Beach State Park (Bacterial Exceedance)
Tamworth: White Lake State Park (Bacterial Exceedance)
Wolfeboro: Wentworth State Park Beach (Bacterial Exceedance)
The beaches will be retested daily until the water no longer exceeds the bacteria limits.
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When will beaches in New Hampshire reopen?
Beaches can only become safe for swimming when their bacteria levels are back within the safe range, so there is no set amount of time for a closure. After an advisory is issued, NHDES performs resampling daily for fecal bacteria levels and weekly for cyanobacteria blooms.
The status of affected beaches can be checked on the NHDES’ Healthy Swimming Mapper, which is updated daily.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Which NH beaches are currently unsafe for swimming? Here’s a list