Magdalena Department

The Magdalena Department coast runs from the Gulf of Salamanca east to the Guajira Peninsula, with Santa Marta at its centre. What makes this stretch geographically unusual is the proximity of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta: the highest coastal mountain range on Earth rises from sea level to 5,775 m within 42 km. The snow peaks of Pico Simón Bolívar and Pico Cristóbal Colón are visible from the beach on clear mornings. The Sierra Nevada creates its own weather: cloud forest on the flanks, rain-shadow dry zones at the coast, and the orographic lift that keeps the summits permanently glaciated at the same latitude as the Sahara. Tayrona National Natural Park, east of Santa Marta, protects a corrugated coast of rocky headlands and pocket beaches backed by humid tropical forest — one of the most visited national parks in Colombia and one of the few places where Sierra Nevada forest reaches the Caribbean shore. The tidal regime is Caribbean microtidal, spring range 0.3 to 0.5 m. Predictions come from Open-Meteo Marine, accuracy class ±45 min / ±0.2–0.3 m.