The best time to go tide pooling depends on the local low tide, daylight, and site-specific access. In July–December 2026, Tidewindow's 11 Pacific stations have 548 minus-tide windows with at least 30 minutes of daylight overlap—not necessarily daylight at the low. Port Townsend (NOAA 9444900) illustrates the difference: its October 5 low is at 5:48 AM, before 7:16 AM sunrise, although the surrounding window includes 39 daylight minutes.
"Best time" is really three questions stacked on top of each other: how low the water needs to be, what hour that low arrives, and how much of the surrounding window falls between sunrise and sunset. The first question has its own page. This page answers the other two with the July–December 2026 predictions, then explains the limits of a computed arrive-by time.
What time of day is best?
The clock time shifts with the season and station. Here is every qualifying minus-tide window at the 11 West Coast stations Tidewindow tracks, July 1 – December 31, 2026, bucketed by the hour of the low. A window qualifies here when its low is below 0.0 ft MLLW and at least 30 minutes of the modeled below-+1.0-ft window overlap daylight. This is not a count of lows occurring in daylight.
| Hour of the low | Qualifying minus-tide windows | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Before 4 AM | 4 | 1% |
| 4 – 8 AM | 242 | 44% |
| 9 – 10 AM | 55 | 10% |
| 11 AM – 1 PM | 37 | 7% |
| 2 – 6 PM | 181 | 33% |
| 7 – 8 PM | 29 | 5% |
Recomputed 2026-10-04 from NOAA predictions (MLLW) and Tidewindow's modeled windows at 11 Pacific stations; 548 windows total. Both tables cover station-local dates July 1 – December 31, 2026, excluding the pipeline's June 30 backfill. Each station's window counts separately, even when several fall on the same date; shares are rounded. Hour buckets include the full named hours.
Two humps, almost nothing in between. The single busiest hour is 6 AM (58 windows); the busiest afternoon hour is 5 PM (51). The 11 AM through 1 PM buckets hold just 7% of this six-month selection. These are low-time distributions, not recommended visiting hours.
The reason for the two humps is seasonal, and it's the useful part.
When does dawn flip to afternoon?
October — and the flip is nearly total in this dataset. Here are the same qualifying windows split by month, counting whether their low occurs before noon:
| Month (2026) | Qualifying minus-tide windows | Low before noon | Low at noon or later | Morning share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July | 192 | 178 | 14 | 93% |
| August | 108 | 105 | 3 | 97% |
| September | 39 | 29 | 10 | 74% |
| October | 47 | 1 | 46 | 2% |
| November | 74 | 0 | 74 | 0% |
| December | 88 | 0 | 88 | 0% |
Recomputed 2026-10-04 from the same 11-station NOAA prediction set and modeled windows, Jul 1 – Dec 31, 2026.
The lone October morning low is Port Townsend on October 5: −0.23 ft at 5:48 AM, before the 7:16 AM sunrise. The modeled window runs 3:55–7:55 AM; its final 39 minutes overlap daylight. The low itself is in darkness. Every other qualifying window that month—and all qualifying minus-tide windows in November and December—has its low at noon or later. Some of those lows are after sunset.
For more on the seasonal pattern, see why summer's low tides cluster near dawn. Within the measured period:
- July–September: most qualifying windows have morning lows.
- October–December: almost all qualifying windows have lows at noon or later, overlapping the start of king-tide season. The daylight label still needs a separate sunrise/sunset check at the low.
Where does the dawn rule bend?
Puget Sound runs late in this comparison. Of Seattle and Port Townsend's 41 qualifying minus-tide windows in July 2026, 27 have lows before noon and 14 at noon or later; the median low falls in the 11 AM hour. Seattle's −3.8 ft July 14 low arrived at 11:20 AM, in daylight. Seattle and Port Townsend have zero minus-tide windows meeting the 30-minute daylight-overlap threshold in November and December 2026. The Puget Sound calendar has the schedule.
Bar Harbor has a different distribution. NOAA describes semidiurnal tides—two similarly sized highs and lows per lunar day—as common on the eastern coast of North America, and mixed semidiurnal tides as common on the west. At Bar Harbor, Maine (NOAA 8413320), July–December 2026 has 232 modeled below-+1.0-ft windows, including 52 minus-tide windows with at least 30 daylight minutes. Of those 52, 34 have lows at noon or later, about two-thirds. These are modeled-window counts, not a claim that almost any low opens a beach. More on how East Coast tide pooling differs.
Which season should you actually pick?
The depth comparison depends on the station. Neither a depth record nor a score establishes beach access or conditions.
Washington and Oregon's minima fall in summer in this six-month comparison. Every covered station in those two states posts its deepest low among qualifying July–December windows in mid-July—from Port Orford's 6:37 AM to Seattle's 11:20 AM. All seven of those station minima occur between sunrise and sunset. January–June is outside this dataset, so these are not full-year records.
California's minima fall on Christmas Eve, but two are after sunset. All four covered California stations have their deepest low among qualifying July–December windows on December 24. The low's relationship to sunset differs:
| Station | Dec 24 low (ft MLLW) | Low time | Sunset | Low itself in daylight? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monterey | −1.83 | 5:06 PM | 4:57 PM | No |
| Pillar Point | −1.90 | 5:10 PM | 4:57 PM | No |
| La Jolla | −1.88 | 3:47 PM | 4:48 PM | Yes |
| San Diego | −1.88 | 3:50 PM | 4:48 PM | Yes |
Station-local times; NOAA-predicted lows and modeled sunrise/sunset from the October 4 data refresh. All four surrounding windows meet the ≥30-minute daylight-overlap threshold. That does not make the entire window daylight.
September and October have the fewest qualifying minus-tide windows in this six-month West Coast comparison—39 and 47 versus July's 192. A month calendar provides the station-level detail behind those totals.
What the arrive-by time does—and does not—mean
Tidewindow's arrive-by field is the predicted low time minus 60 minutes. That fixed offset does not include a route's walking time, opening hours, closures, or daylight. It is not a universal arrival recommendation, an access guarantee, or a turnaround rule. For the October 5 Port Townsend example, it produces 4:48 AM—also before sunrise. Our methodology page explains the computation.
For Acadia specifically, the National Park Service says: "It is best to start tidepooling before low tide and to leave as the tide is rising." That local guidance is not a timing rule for every coast or route.
Check your dates
The tables above tell you when kinds of days happen. For your actual dates:
- The Tide Window Finder ranks modeled windows over the next 30 days for a covered station—ZIP code lookup included. Ranking alone is not a daylight-at-low or access check.
- The month calendars show covered stations' windows with at least 30 minutes of daylight overlap, morning or afternoon.
- The state hubs group covered beaches by region: Washington, Oregon, California, and Maine.
Predictions are not observations. The timing comparisons above do not establish current conditions, beach opening, route access, or a safe departure time.