Washington's king tides for the 2026-27 season peak twice: Christmas week, December 23-28, 2026, at La Push and Port Townsend, and January 24-26, 2027 in Seattle. Per NOAA predictions the state's highest high is 13.09 ft MLLW at Seattle (station 9447130) on Monday, January 25 at 7:16 AM. The deepest low with a daylight window belongs to the outer coast — -1.97 ft at La Push (9442396) on December 23 — but the low itself lands about an hour and a half after sunset; the light sits earlier in the window.
What makes a tide "king"
Nothing official. NOAA's definition: "A King Tide is a non-scientific term people often use to describe exceptionally high tides." The mechanism behind the biggest ones is a perigean spring tide — in NOAA's words, one that "occurs when the moon is either new or full and closest to Earth." That lineup is not rare: "Typically between 6-8 times each year, the new or full moon coincides closely in time with the perigee of the moon." During any spring tide, "high tides are higher and low tides are lower than average" — the swing works both ways, which is why this page has two halves: the highs people photograph, and the question of whether the matching lows are worth anything.
The same season at all twelve stations we compute is in King Tides 2026 & 2027 Dates. This page is Washington only, and Washington needs its own page because the two halves come apart here in a way they don't in Oregon.
The Washington king tide dates: the season's highest highs
The Christmas run carries the coast and the northern Sound; Seattle's peak waits for late January. Notice the clocks as much as the heights: Puget Sound's biggest highs arrive with morning coffee, between 5:49 and 8:22 AM, while La Push crests near midday — much friendlier light for a photograph.
| Station (NOAA id) | Highest predicted high | Date | Time of high | Next highest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle (9447130) | 13.09 ft | Mon, Jan 25, 2027 | 7:16 AM | 13.04 ft Jan 24 · 13.01 ft Dec 26 · 13.00 ft Jan 26 · 13.00 ft Dec 27 |
| Port Townsend (9444900) | 9.96 ft | Sat, Dec 26, 2026 | 7:08 AM | 9.95 ft Dec 25 · 9.91 ft Dec 27 · 9.83 ft Dec 28 · 9.81 ft Dec 24 |
| La Push (9442396) | 11.01 ft | Thu, Dec 24, 2026 | 11:43 AM | 10.91 ft Dec 25 · 10.85 ft Dec 23 · 10.79 ft Nov 25 · 10.78 ft Jan 22 |
Each station's five highest predicted highs of the October 2026 – March 2027 season. Computed 2026-09-04 from NOAA predictions, heights in ft MLLW, times local. Predictions are astronomical forecasts, not observations: a winter low-pressure system or a strong onshore wind can push the actual water level well above these numbers — which is exactly what the photos are for.
Those photos are the point of the Washington King Tides Program, a citizen-science project run by Washington Sea Grant (part of the University of Washington's College of the Environment). Participants photograph waterfront locations in their communities during king tides — ideally spots whose ordinary high tide they know — so the images document where a future, higher sea might reach. Photos go in through the MyCoast website or app. When this page was written on September 4, 2026, the program page had not yet posted 2026-27 photo dates, and a re-check on October 19, 2026 found that still true; the NOAA-predicted highs above are the days to watch for.
The honest half: Puget Sound's deep lows are at night
In Oregon, the king-tide dates themselves tend to carry the season's deepest daylight-window lows — at Port Orford, four of the five deepest share dates with the season's five highest highs. In Puget Sound the two halves separate. At Seattle (9447130), November and December 2026 have zero daylight low-tide windows — 21 lows below +1.0 ft each month, every one of them after dark. Port Townsend (9444900) is the same: 22 sub-+1.0 ft lows in each of those months, none with usable light.
It isn't that winter water is shallow here; it's that the deep lows and the daylight stop overlapping. Seattle's five deepest daylight lows of the entire king season all crowd into February and March 2027, and the deepest is just -0.65 ft (Thursday, March 25 at 1:45 PM). Compare July: on July 14, 2026, Seattle's daylight low reached -3.80 ft at 11:20 AM — over three feet more reef than anything the king season will show you before sunset. If you tidepool on Puget Sound, king tide season is spectator season, and your dates are in summer. The Puget Sound low tide calendar has the full year's picture.
| Station | Deepest low with a daylight window, Oct 2026 – Mar 2027 | Date | Time of low | Sunset | Daylight in window | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle (9447130) | -0.65 ft | Thu, Mar 25, 2027 | 1:45 PM | 7:29 PM | 175 min | 57 (Fair) |
| Port Townsend (9444900) | -1.64 ft | Wed, Feb 17, 2027 | 7:06 PM | 5:36 PM | 57 min | 55 (Fair) |
| La Push (9442396) | -1.97 ft | Wed, Dec 23, 2026 | 6:03 PM | 4:29 PM | 39 min | 59 (Fair) |
Deepest low among windows with at least 30 minutes of daylight overlap. Computed 2026-09-04 from NOAA predictions, re-verified 2026-10-20. Heights in ft MLLW, times local. A low printed after its sunset happens in the dark; the daylight minutes sit earlier in the window. Score is Tidewindow's 0-100 rating combining depth, daylight overlap, weekend/holiday timing and a regional seasonal component; the methodology page shows the formula.
Port Townsend sits between the two regimes: its -1.64 ft on February 17 is real depth, but the low itself lands at 7:06 PM — an hour and a half after the 5:36 PM sunset — and only 57 minutes of the window are lit. Its most usable king-season windows are shallower: scored across the whole October–March season, the best is -0.71 ft on Sunday, March 14, 2027 at 3:21 PM, with 250 daylight minutes, scoring 69 (Good). Two days before the February 17 deep low, February 15 offers -0.77 ft at 5:04 PM with 158 daylight minutes, scoring 65.
The exception: La Push keeps daylight windows all winter
The outer coast never goes fully dark. While Seattle and Port Townsend post zero daylight windows in November and December, La Push keeps 6-8 a month from October through January — then 14 in February and 24 in March as the light returns — and its king-season lows have real depth:
| Date | Low (ft MLLW) | Time of low | Window below +1.0 ft | Sunset | Daylight in window | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wed, Dec 23, 2026 | -1.97 | 6:03 PM | 3:50 – 8:25 PM | 4:29 PM | 39 min | 59 (Fair) |
| Fri, Jan 22, 2027 | -1.96 | 6:35 PM | 4:25 – 8:45 PM | 5:03 PM | 38 min | 63 (Good) |
| Tue, Nov 24, 2026 | -1.84 | 6:14 PM | 4:00 – 8:30 PM | 4:32 PM | 32 min | 56 (Fair) |
| Thu, Jan 21, 2027 | -1.82 | 5:50 PM | 3:40 – 8:05 PM | 5:01 PM | 82 min | 63 (Good) |
| Tue, Dec 22, 2026 | -1.45 | 5:15 PM | 3:10 – 7:25 PM | 4:28 PM | 79 min | 55 (Fair) |
La Push's five lowest lows among windows with at least 30 minutes of daylight overlap, computed 2026-09-04 from NOAA predictions for station 9442396, re-verified 2026-10-20. Heights in ft MLLW, times local. The window is the modeled interval below +1.0 ft; it does not verify beach access, route conditions, or how long a safe return takes.
Read the sunset column against the time-of-low column: every low in this table arrives after dark, between about 45 minutes and just over an hour and a half past sunset, so the lit minutes are the first stretch of each window, on the falling tide — never the low itself. December 23 is the deepest water of the season, but only 39 of its minutes are lit; January 21 gives up 0.15 ft of depth for more than twice the light. The squeeze loosens as the days lengthen: by mid-February the deep lows move back into daylight — February 18, 2027 is -1.02 ft at 4:46 PM, an hour before sunset, with 176 daylight minutes, and February 19 (-1.29 ft at 5:31 PM, 133 daylight minutes, 66) is the season's highest-scoring La Push window. No La Push window all season reaches the Great band, and neither does any at Seattle or Port Townsend; Washington's king season is played in the Fair-to-Good range, in the last of the light.
Winter lows come with winter ocean, and the outer coast is the most exposed shore in the state. Predictions are not observations, and swell can erase a calm-water window entirely; what a sneaker wave is, and what the official agencies say about it, is in What is a sneaker wave?.
Where to stand
- La Push (9442396): Second Beach and Third Beach — the La Push and Second Beach guide, which leads with the current access advisories for the Mora/Rialto side.
- Port Townsend (9444900): Fort Worden State Park, North Beach, Glass Beach — the Port Townsend and Fort Worden guide.
- Seattle (9447130): Alki Beach, Constellation Park, Golden Gardens — the Constellation Park tide pools guide covers all three, and the statewide picture is in Best tide pools in Washington.
How to keep these dates
They are months away, which is how they get lost. The Tide Window Finder lists every upcoming daylight window at all three Washington stations with its arrive-by time, and takes a ZIP code to pick the nearest station (the lookup runs in your browser; nothing is sent). The Trip Picker will chain the December 22-23 and January 21-22 La Push windows into a best consecutive-days answer if your travel dates are flexible. And the station picker at the end of this page hands you a calendar feed of upcoming Good-or-better daylight windows, each with an arrive-by alarm. Mind what that filter means here: of the five La Push dates above, only the two January windows score Good, so only they reach the feed — the Fair rows don't make the cut, and the high-tide photo dates are never in it; it is a low-window feed.