Coronado Tide Chart

NOAA’s main San Diego station, at Broadway on the downtown waterfront, is closer to Coronado but sits inside the bay, where high tides run higher than on the ocean beach. Set side by side for the 30 days from October 15, 2026, Imperial Beach’s high tides came at the same minute as Broadway’s but were usually about a third of a foot lower, and up to half a foot lower. NOAA’s other ocean-side point, at Point Loma west of Coronado, stayed within 9 minutes and about a tenth of a foot of Imperial Beach, so the two agree on what the ocean beach sees.

Lifeguards work year-round from the permanent station at Central Beach, with extra towers from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. The water off the main beaches is split into swimming and surfing zones, marked by a yellow flag with a black ball. North Beach runs from just north of the main lifeguard tower to the fence line of Naval Air Station North Island, and Dog Beach, the city’s dog-run area, is the sandy stretch at its far north end.

How much sand a Coronado high tide leaves depends on where you stand. The city’s beach is about 1.75 miles of wide sand with Navy beaches at both ends, and South Beach runs from the Naval Amphibious Base to the rock jetty in front of the Hotel del Coronado, built in 1888. The wide beach and the seawall behind it have long sheltered the west side of town, but the sand is thinning in places: Scripps oceanographer Reinhard Flick found that Stan’s Beach, by Coronado Shores, has lost more than 200 feet of sand since the winter of 2022–23, and the beach near the foot of Loma Avenue has narrowed by about 50 feet over 15 years, as the Coronado Times reported in December 2025. The high tides listed here are astronomical predictions only: NOAA leaves out waves and storm surge, so on a stormy day the water can run farther up the beach than the table says.

King tides reach both shores of Coronado. In November 2020 the Coronado Times photographed them at Shores Beach and reported that they swamped the shoreline, with no damage recorded. On the bay side, the Coronado Times reported in December 2025 that the city’s 2022 Sea Level Rise Plan lists the Coronado Cays, the Ferry Landing area, Alameda Avenue at First Street and the Coronado Yacht Club among the places at risk of storm flooding once the sea rises 0.8 feet. If you photograph the highest tides, the California Coastal Commission collects pictures for its California King Tides Project; dates for every beach on this site are on the California king tides page.