Penang

Penang state runs along the northwestern coast of Peninsular Malaysia, anchored on the island of Pulau Pinang and the Seberang Perai mainland strip across the Penang Channel. The coast faces the Strait of Malacca, the long shipping artery between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula that funnels Indian Ocean tidal energy northward toward the Andaman Sea. The tide signature is semidiurnal with a moderate range. Mean range at the Pulau Pinang gauge in George Town is around 1.8 to 2.2 metres, climbing past 2.5 metres on the largest spring tides and compressing toward 1.2 metres on neaps. The pattern is two highs and two lows about twelve and a half hours apart. The strait geometry funnels and amplifies the open-ocean tide as it propagates north, so Penang's range is meaningfully larger than the Andaman archipelagos to the west but smaller than the head of the strait near Port Klang and the Klang valley further south. The two Penang Bridge crossings and the Penang Second Bridge span the channel between the island and the mainland; ferry traffic between George Town's Weld Quay and Butterworth runs across the same channel current. The George Town heritage zone faces the channel from the eastern shore of the island and is sheltered from open Andaman Sea swell. The northern coast of the island at Batu Ferringhi and Tanjung Bungah opens more directly to the strait. Fishers working the Penang Channel for shrimp, mackerel, and barramundi time their nets to the change of tide; oyster and mussel farmers on the mainland mudflats read the same windows. Mudflat foragers on the Seberang Perai side walk the exposed flats at low water for clams and tropical mud crabs. The Department of Survey and Mapping Malaysia (JUPEM) and the National Hydrographic Centre publish the authoritative Malaysian tide tables for the Strait of Malacca gauges. Open-Meteo Marine drives the gridded predictions on this site.