West Seattle beaches: Low-low-tide season about to start

That was the scene this morning at Anchor Park along Duwamish Head, which is one place you might want to be later this week when low-low-tide season starts, for a good overview of the shore, or a starting point to walk along it. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will bring the first minus-two-feet daytime low tides of the year – -2.3 at 1:03 pm on Friday, -2.4 at 1:51 pm on Saturday, -2.1 at 2:41 pm on Sunday. So far, the weather looks best on Saturday.

P.S. Memorial Day weekend will bring the first minus-three-feet tides of the year, and Seattle Aquarium beach naturalists too.

Student April 25, 2017 (10:55 pm)

Why is there such a thing as a low low tide season. Can anyone point me to a resource where I can learn this?

Swamp Thing April 26, 2017 (9:18 am)

That is a great question! Tides get very low for a few days every lunar month all year long. These are called “spring tides” because the water also gets very high on these days (like a spring pouring water onto the beach, not the season). What happens this time of year is that those very low tides occur during the day. During the fall/winter, the low tides happen when it is dark and what we notice are the very high tides during the day.

Here are a few websites with more information about tides:

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_tides/welcome.html

http://oceanmotion.org/html/background/tides-types.htm Puget Sound has semidiurnal mixed tides

http://www.tides.net/washington/2442/ This is the tide graph for Seattle this month. Spring tides are when there is the biggest difference between low and high tides (4/27-30). The height difference is lowest during “neap tides” (4/17-20).