El Jadida, Casablanca-Settat tide times

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived.

Model-derived from a global ocean grid. Useful indication; expect about ±45 minutes on average vs. a local harmonic gauge, individual stations vary widely. See /methodology for per-region detail. Not for navigation.

Conditions as of 23:00 local time. Refreshes daily.

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived. · Not for navigation.

The angler tradition for major/minor fishing windows: major ≈3-hour windows around moon transit and opposition; minor ≈2-hour windows around moonrise and moonset. Times are Africa/Casablanca local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Last spring tide on Tue 05 May (range 1.8m). Next neap on Sat 09 May.

Spring tides cluster around new and full moons (biggest swings). Neap tides land on quarter moons (smallest swings). See the spring tide and neap tide glossary entries for the why.

El Jadida — formerly known as Mazagan under Portuguese rule — is one of the most architecturally significant coastal towns in Morocco. The Cité Portugaise, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004, is a walled medina built by Portuguese colonisers in the early 16th century and still almost entirely intact: bastions, ramparts, a church, and a cistern, all from the 1500s, still standing at the Atlantic edge 96 km south of Casablanca. The tide is not a background detail at El Jadida. It is embedded in the architecture. The Citerne Portugaise — the Portuguese cistern — is one of the most unusual interior spaces in North Africa. Built under the fortification as a water store, it was sealed for centuries after the Portuguese withdrawal in 1769 and rediscovered in 1916 by the French colonial administration. When the cistern was cleared, a channel was found through the old city wall connecting the cistern's floor to the sea. At the highest spring tides, seawater enters through this channel and partially floods the cistern floor — a shallow sheet of water, typically 10 to 30 cm deep, that reflects the cistern's vaulted ceiling in perfect stillness. The effect is famous; the cistern appeared in Orson Welles' 1952 film Othello, shot partly in El Jadida. The flooding is not guaranteed on every visit — it depends on the tidal height reaching the threshold for the channel to admit water, which only happens on the higher spring tides (roughly the top 20% of high waters by height). The cistern is open for visits regardless of tide; the flooded version requires checking the tide table and arriving within 90 minutes of a spring high water. The semidiurnal tidal range at El Jadida runs 2.5 to 3.5 m on spring tides, consistent with the wider Moroccan Atlantic coast. The Portuguese ramparts along the seaward bastions sit at approximately mean high-water level on the oceanward face. Orson Welles described standing on the Bastion de l'Ange and watching the water come to the base of the stonework — that is still true on spring high tides today. The seaward face of the bastions has been undercut by Atlantic wave action since the Portuguese withdrawal; erosion accelerated after a rock revetment was placed seaward of the walls in the 1980s, which changed the wave reflection pattern. The base of the Bastion de l'Ange is noticeably undercut at low water on a spring tide — accessible for close inspection from the beach, which drops 1.5 to 2.0 m below the revetment crest. Plage d'El Jadida is the open Atlantic beach north of the old city. It is wide and long — at spring low tide the sand extends 150 to 200 m from the dune line, hard-packed and flat. The beach is the primary leisure space for El Jadida's 150,000 residents and receives significant summer visitor traffic from Casablanca and Marrakech. The Atlantic exposure here is significant: northwest swell arrives without obstruction, and the beach break is energetic in autumn and winter (1.5 to 2.5 m faces in October). Summer is calmer — 0.3 to 0.8 m waves most days. The modern port of Mazagan (retained name on maritime charts) is north of the old city, handling phosphate exports from the Khouribga mines inland. The port is operational 24 hours and loading is tide-independent for large bulk carriers using the outer deep-water berths. The port breakwater creates a calmer zone immediately north of the medina waterfront, reducing wave action on the old city's seaward face — a side effect that has altered the sediment distribution along the shore compared to pre-port conditions. For visitors focused on the Cité Portugaise, the medina's narrow lanes and whitewashed walls are best photographed in the two hours before noon when the sun is at a south-southwest angle and the lane shadows are still partial. The cistern interior itself is dim at all times — the vaulted ceiling admits light only through one small opening — and the flooded version requires long exposure or a fast lens to capture the reflection properly. Anglers target bass (robalo) from the rocky revetment at the base of the bastions at low water when the stones are exposed and accessible. The surf zone along Plage d'El Jadida holds flatfish — sole and flounder — in the sandy troughs that form parallel to shore at low tide, particularly on a calm day following a period of swell that has built and reorganised the beach profiles. The medina wall's seaward face is best seen at low water spring tide, when 1.5 to 2.0 m of additional height is visible below the normal tide line — including the undercut base of the Bastion de l'Ange that is invisible at high water. This is also the safest time to walk the revetment rocks below the rampart for close inspection of the stonework. Tide data for El Jadida, Casablanca-Settat comes from the Open-Meteo Marine API, a gridded model product. Timing accuracy is ±45 minutes, height accuracy ±0.3 m — usable for trip planning, not for navigation.