Cádiz 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 06:00 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 Europe/Madrid local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Last spring tide on Sat 02 May (range 2.4m). Next neap on Fri 08 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.

Cádiz occupies a narrow peninsula jabbing westward into the Atlantic from the Andalusian shore, the city surrounded on three sides by open ocean and backed to the east by the Bay of Cadiz and the broad tidal flats of the Parque Natural de la Bahía de Cádiz. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe — Phoenician Gadir, founded around 1100 BCE, the same port from which Columbus departed for the Americas on his second and subsequent voyages. The geography explains the tides: unlike every Spanish Mediterranean port, Cadiz sits on the open Atlantic, and the daily swing between high and low water is 2.5 to 3.5 metres on a typical day, pushing toward 4 metres at spring tides around new and full moons. That is a different proposition entirely from Malaga, Alicante, or Barcelona, where the astronomical tide is barely a consideration. At Cadiz, the tide is central to understanding how the coast and bay operate. The peninsula itself exposes different faces to the tidal cycle. The Playa de La Caleta on the northwest side — a compact city beach enclosed between the Castillo de San Sebastián on its outer point and the Castillo de Santa Catalina on the inner headland — faces the open Atlantic swell. The beach narrows considerably at high tide and widens substantially at low, with the rocks at the base of the castillo walls exposed enough at low water to walk around on a calm day. The Playa de La Victoria runs south from the peninsula's widest point along the Atlantic face, a longer and more exposed strand where the tidal range means the walk from the promenade to the water's edge at low tide is a genuine distance across firm sand. On the bay side, the tidal flats of the Parque Natural extend across several thousand hectares of intertidal mud, salt marsh, and channel — one of the most significant bird habitats on the Atlantic coast of Iberia, visited by hundreds of thousands of migrating waders and wildfowl moving between Africa and northern Europe each spring and autumn. The timing of the tide governs access to the viewing platforms and the depth in the channels used by the flat-bottomed boats that work the bay. The Bay of Cadiz also contains El Puerto de Santa María on the northern shore — the town visible across the bay from the Cadiz promenade — connected by the catamaran ferry that crosses on the bay's tidal currents. The crossing time is the same either way, but the current through the bay channel is perceptible at midtide and the ferry schedules are built around the tide-influenced navigation conditions. Fifteen kilometres south of Cadiz, Tarifa sits at the western tip of the Strait of Gibraltar where the Atlantic and Mediterranean meet — the windiest headland in continental Europe by most measurements, where the Poniente (westerly) and Levante (easterly) wind systems alternate and the consistent airflow has made Tarifa Europe's undisputed capital for kitesurfing. The tide off Tarifa carries additional complexity: the tidal flow through the Strait of Gibraltar creates strong east-west currents that interact with the wind-driven chop, and the timing of slack water matters for water entries and exits from the beach. Anglers working the rocky points and sea walls around the Cadiz peninsula time their sessions around the tidal state. The stones around the Castillo de San Sebastián, the sea walls at Campo del Sur on the Atlantic face, and the rocky points at the southern end of La Victoria beach all fish better on the rising tide when sea bass (lubina), bream (dorada), and mullet (lisa) are pushed in by the incoming flood. Surfers and SUP riders use La Caleta on smaller south and southwest swells, though the exposed Atlantic face of La Victoria takes the bigger groundswells. At Tarifa, the swell and wind interaction is sophisticated enough that the kite and windsurf operations run their own tide-current briefings separate from the general tide table. The predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine, a gridded global ocean model. Accuracy is typically within plus or minus 45 minutes on timing and roughly 0.2 to 0.3 metres on height — model-derived, not a local gauge. For a 2.5 to 3.5 metre range, that height uncertainty is proportionally modest and the predictions are useful for general planning. Authoritative data for Cadiz comes from Puertos del Estado, which operates the Cadiz gauge, and from the Instituto Hidrográfico de la Marina, headquartered in Cadiz city and responsible for the official Spanish tide almanac.