Pool season · North Carolina
Wilmington Pool Season: the Year on One Bar
Last updated: July 15, 2026 · dates · water temp
Wilmington's whole pool calendar, condensed: when the water warms, when it cools, and where today falls between those edges. Use the opening guide and closing guide for the step-by-step work; keep this page for the dates.
Reading it takes ten seconds: 52 dots, one per week. Solid teal is Wilmington's swim season; the hollow teal run before it (March 17 to April 7) is when to open; the hollow amber run after is when to close, with November 8 as the deadline; gray is the covered season. Today's marker shows where you stand in that cycle right now.
The Wilmington pool calendar
Opening — target March 24
Target March 24; the practical window runs March 17–April 7, and the 7-day mean crosses the 61°F threshold around April 7. Cold-water starts are the cheap ones.
Closing — deadline November 8
The window opens October 29 once water leaves the algae zone; the model deadline is November 8, a week ahead of the November 20 freeze normal.
Estimated water temperature by month
This is Wilmington's typical-year water curve: the same EWMA model as the live widget, run on the 1991–2020 normals instead of this week's weather.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 48° | 48° | 52° | 60° | 68° | 75° | 81° | 81° | 78° | 71° | 60° | 52° |
Warmest water typically July–September (peaking near 81°F); heaters and covers shift any month up.
Email me when Wilmington hits the closing window
Data: NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals via Wilmington International Airport (4.0 mi); live outlook by Open-Meteo. Attribution: sources · assumptions: methodology.