Rhode Island Geography & Climate

Rhode Island is the smallest state and one of the most indented. Narragansett Bay reaches thirty miles inland, nearly cutting the state in half and leaving more than thirty islands inside it.

The bay divides the state into three: the East Bay towards the Massachusetts line, the urbanised head of the bay around Providence, and the West Bay running down to a straight south-facing shore of barrier beaches and salt ponds.

Block Island lies twelve miles off the south coast, reached by ferry, with clay bluffs on its southern side standing 150 feet above the water.

Inland the west and northwest are wooded and rolling, and genuinely rural. The highest point in the state is 812 feet, which tells you most of what you need to know about the terrain.

The bay and the ocean moderate everything. Summers are warm rather than hot, and the shore stays several degrees cooler than inland; sea fog is common in early summer.

Winters are cold and damp, with less snow than inland New England because so much of it arrives as rain. Nor'easters are the main winter event.

Hurricanes are a genuine risk, not a theoretical one. The 1938 hurricane killed hundreds here and reshaped the coastline, and the south-facing shore is exposed to storm surge in a way the rest of New England is not.

Autumn is long and mild, and the water stays swimmable into late September.