The last Exceptional tidepooling run of 2026 in Puget Sound arrives August 8–13. Sunday, August 9 is the headline day: Port Townsend (NOAA station 9444900) drops to −2.05 ft at 7:38 AM — a perfect-100 window — while Seattle (9447130) reaches −1.91 ft at 8:29 AM. The deepest water waits for Tuesday, August 11: −2.63 ft at 10:19 AM in Seattle, the lowest daylight tide left this year.
July's famous run put the year's absolute deepest water on a Monday and a Tuesday, which is a fine arrangement for retirees and remote workers and a cruel one for everyone else. August returns the favor. This run opens on a weekend, builds through midweek, and hands the Sound its last 90-plus mornings of the year before the deep lows start sliding toward winter darkness.
For once, the weekend is the point
Our scores add up four things: how deep the low goes (up to 50 points), how much of the walkable window falls in daylight (up to 30), a 10-point bonus for a Saturday, Sunday, or holiday, and up to 10 for seasonal comfort. A weekday can therefore top out at 90 — and Monday through Wednesday of this run all hit exactly that ceiling. Sunday, August 9 is shallower than Tuesday, but it lands on a day most people can actually use, and at Port Townsend its 292 daylight minutes and −2.05 ft low round to the year's only remaining flat 100.
Read that as the scoring being honest about two different questions. Deepest water: Tuesday, by 0.72 ft over Sunday at Seattle and 0.37 ft at Port Townsend. Best morning you probably have free: Sunday.
Day by day in the Sound
Port Townsend (NOAA 9444900) first; Seattle (9447130) runs its low about 50 minutes later each day.
| Date | Port Townsend low | Seattle low | Scores (PT / SEA) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat, Aug 8 | −1.52 ft, 6:39 AM | −1.26 ft, 7:28 AM | 90 / 85 |
| Sun, Aug 9 | −2.05 ft, 7:38 AM | −1.91 ft, 8:29 AM | 100 / 98 |
| Mon, Aug 10 | −2.37 ft, 8:33 AM | −2.40 ft, 9:26 AM | 90 / 90 |
| Tue, Aug 11 | −2.42 ft, 9:24 AM | −2.63 ft, 10:19 AM | 90 / 90 |
| Wed, Aug 12 | −2.14 ft, 10:11 AM | −2.48 ft, 11:07 AM | 90 / 90 |
| Thu, Aug 13 | −1.53 ft, 10:55 AM | −1.91 ft, 11:52 AM | 81 / 88 |
Computed 2026-07-25 from NOAA CO-OPS predictions, MLLW. These are predictions, not observations — wind and pressure can shift the real water level.
The usual run shape applies: each low lands roughly 50 minutes later than the day before, so the week starts as an early-riser's tide and ends as a late-morning stroll. On the big Sunday, plan backwards from the low — arrive by 6:38 AM at Port Townsend or 7:29 AM at Seattle to catch the last hour of falling water. Seattle's walkable window that morning runs 6:20 AM to 10:45 AM; Port Townsend's opens even earlier, 5:00 AM to 10:50 AM.
Where to stand in the water's absence: our Port Townsend / Fort Worden guide and Seattle / Alki and Constellation Park guide cover access, parking, and what lives on each shore, and the Washington hub compares all three state stations. Day-by-day scores for the full month are on the station calendars: Seattle, Port Townsend, La Push.
The outer coast: La Push gets its last two, without Rialto
Out on the Olympic Peninsula's ocean side, La Push (NOAA 9442396) posts its own final Exceptional mornings of 2026: Wednesday, August 12 at −2.31 ft (6:58 AM low, arrive by 5:58 AM) and Thursday, August 13 at −2.14 ft (7:39 AM). Tuesday the 11th is nearly as good at −2.18 ft, 6:13 AM, and Friday the 14th still scores 89 at −1.68 ft, 8:17 AM. Deeper lows do exist on La Push's December calendar, but they land in Fair-scoring near-dark windows — these August mornings are the last of the genuinely good ones.
One access fact matters more than any number here. The National Park Service's Olympic conditions page states: "Mora Road is closed to all traffic for construction from July 8–Oct. 15, 2026," which means Rialto Beach and Hole-in-the-Wall are off the table for this entire run. The place to be is Second Beach, reached by a 0.7-mile forest trail off La Push Road — our La Push guide leads with the closure and covers the trail, the sea stacks, and the rock that a deep low exposes.
Elsewhere on the coast, briefly
Oregon's four stations peak on Wednesday, August 12, all before breakfast: Newport −1.91 ft at 6:46 AM (score 88), Garibaldi −1.77 ft at 7:04 AM (85), Charleston −1.72 ft at 6:35 AM (81), Port Orford −1.74 ft at 6:19 AM (80). It is the last deep dawn run of the Oregon summer — the Oregon hub has the full story and all four station guides.
California sits this one out. The same lows arrive there before sunrise — Pillar Point's −1.13 ft on August 12 comes at 5:12 AM, with most of its window in the dark — and the scores stay in the Fair 50s. California's turn comes in winter, when the calendar flips and the deep lows land in daylight afternoons; the king tides page has those dates.
And on the other coast entirely: Acadia's best remaining window of the summer lands the same week, Saturday, August 15 at −0.80 ft, 7:16 AM. The Acadia guide covers that run day by day.
You're on your own this time — pleasantly
July's big lows came with company: the Seattle Aquarium's Beach Naturalist volunteers staffed West Seattle and Golden Gardens beaches through the summer's deepest windows. That season is over — the Aquarium's published 2026 schedule ends with its July 15 session, and no August dates are listed. So this run is self-guided. The species lists on our station pages (recent iNaturalist observations within 5 km of each station) are a reasonable pocket companion — and right now they are, frankly, a sea-slug festival: at Seattle, the Monterey Dorid (13 recent observations) and Horned Nudibranch (12) lead the list; at Port Townsend, the Gumboot Chiton — the world's largest chiton — tops it with 12.
After this run
Mark it honestly: August 13 closes the Exceptional column for 2026 in the Sound. The best that remains is Monday, September 7 — Labor Day — with −1.11 ft at 7:20 AM in Port Townsend (score 80, Great) and −0.93 ft at 8:12 AM in Seattle (77), and from October the deep water moves to late afternoons and darkness. If a minus tide is on your summer list, this is the week that decides whether it happens this year. The Trip Picker will line these dates up against your own calendar in about ten seconds.