Simple Tides / Guides / Central & Northern California Tides

Central & Northern California Tides

From Monterey Bay to the Lost Coast and Humboldt Bay, this rugged stretch runs on a big mixed semidiurnal tide — two unequal highs and two unequal lows a day — that drives Dungeness crab season, salmon runs, and some of the West Coast’s wildest bar crossings.

The pattern

Expect five to seven feet of range along most of this coast, with the classic West Coast asymmetry: one daily high clearly outranks the other. The spring tides near full and new moons bring the month’s biggest exchanges — and the year’s lowest “minus tides” in late spring expose superb tide pooling from Asilomar to Trinidad.

City tide charts

Get live NOAA predictions for the region’s key harbors:

• Monterey tide chart — Monterey Bay, Elkhorn Slough kayaking, salmon and halibut
• Eureka tide chart — Humboldt Bay, Dungeness crab, oyster country
• San Francisco tide chart — the Golden Gate and the Bay’s sailing currents

Dungeness crab and salmon

Winter Dungeness crab season sends pots out from Bodega Bay to Crescent City, and tide stage matters — strong ebb currents can walk gear a long way. Salmon and halibut anglers work the tide changes, when moving water concentrates bait along the canyon edges and bay mouths.

Bar crossings and kayaking

The river mouths and bay entrances up here — Humboldt Bay’s jetties most famously — can turn genuinely dangerous when a big ebb meets ocean swell. Cross bars on a flood or at slack water, and check the marine forecast alongside the tide table. Sea kayakers should treat the Lost Coast and the bay mouths with the same respect.

Find stations up and down the coast on the Simple Tides map.