Balearic Islands

The Balearic Islands — Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Formentera — sit in the western Mediterranean off the Spanish mainland. The tide signature here is small in the way it is small across most of the Med: mean range at Palma is about 0.2 metres, with spring tides barely topping 0.3 metres and neaps closer to flat. The astronomical signal is genuinely tiny because the Mediterranean is a nearly enclosed basin and the Atlantic tide cannot propagate cleanly through the narrow Strait of Gibraltar. What matters more on a day-to-day basis is meteorological tide — air pressure changes lift or drop sea level by a few centimetres on a calm day, and a strong tramontana or sirocco can shift water level 20 to 30 cm in a matter of hours. The phenomenon known locally as a rissaga — a Mediterranean meteotsunami driven by atmospheric pressure waves — can produce sudden 1 to 2 metre water-level changes in harbours like Ciutadella on Menorca's west coast. Sailors timing harbour exits, paddleboarders launching from the calas, and snorkellers reading the rocks at Cala Macarella all read the wider weather pattern more than the tide table. Open-Meteo Marine drives the gridded predictions on this site; Puertos del Estado runs the authoritative Mediterranean gauge network.