Record Tides Flood the SoCal Coast Again as El Niño Heats the Ocean
After San Pedro's tide gauge hit an all-time high, seawater swamped PCH in Huntington Beach and Newport streets Tuesday, with more high tides due through Thursday.
For the second morning in a row, the Pacific came over the curb. High tide on Tuesday pushed seawater across a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach, back onto streets near Newport Beach's Balboa Peninsula and into low-lying corners of Long Beach, a day after tide gauges in the region posted their highest readings on record. Forecasters say the very high morning tides will keep coming through Thursday.
A Century-Old Record Falls in San Pedro
The clearest measure of how unusual this week has been comes from the Port of Los Angeles. A preliminary reading at the San Pedro tide gauge reached 8.02 feet on Monday morning, topping the previous mark of 7.93 feet set during an El Niño winter on Jan. 10, 2005, according to the National Weather Service, as reported by ABC7. Records at that gauge go back to November 1923.
That 8.02-foot reading was 1.42 feet higher than the moon and sun alone would have produced, National Weather Service meteorologist David Gomberg told the Los Angeles Times. He attributed the difference to thermal expansion from unusually warm water off the coast, plus the effect of a Kelvin wave, a slow, invisible pulse of warm equatorial water that travels along the coastline.
In Newport Beach, city officials said Monday's tide came in about an inch and a half higher than anything they had seen before, and warned that Tuesday's could run at least two inches higher still, CBS Los Angeles reported.
Tuesday Morning on the Coast
Huntington Beach closed Pacific Coast Highway between Warner Avenue and Anderson Street from 8 a.m. to noon as a precaution. The tide arrived shortly before 10 a.m., and about an hour later several inches of seawater still covered the roadway, ABC7 reported. Fire crews were staged nearby in case drivers got stuck, and officials repeated their warning not to drive through floodwater.
Newport Beach saw flooding again on Lido Park Drive and around the Newport Harbor Yacht Club boatyard, but the Balboa Fun Zone, which took on water Monday, saw only minor flooding Tuesday. ABC7 noted the city had brought in extra pumping equipment to clear water faster.
In Long Beach, Alamitos Bay spilled over onto 54th Street on Monday, sending water toward homes, nearby businesses and a below-grade garage, CBS Los Angeles reported. On the Long Beach Peninsula, an $11 million dredging project, the first in Alamitos Bay in 20 years, is pumping sand onto the beach to rebuild a buffer lost to earlier storms, according to NBC Los Angeles. A resident of the Naples neighborhood told the Times she worries the area's aging seawalls could be breached during king tides in November and December.
Trains and Highways Affected
The disruption reaches beyond the beach. The rail line shared by Metrolink and Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner is closed between Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo and Oceanside through Friday because high surf is washing over the tracks, and unlike a closure over Memorial Day weekend, no replacement buses are running, Voice of OC reported. The Orange County Transportation Authority board voted to extend an emergency declaration so it can keep working to bring more sand to the coast, though that sand is not expected to arrive until June.
Why the Water Is So High
Scientists point to an unusually strong El Niño and record-warm coastal water. Warm water takes up more space than cold water, which raises sea level. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, told the Times that water along the immediate California coast is at record warm levels for this time of year from roughly the Farallon Islands to Baja California. At Scripps Pier in La Jolla, the sea surface was 73.8 degrees on Monday, 9.1 degrees above the average for the date, according to Scripps researcher Reinhard Flick.
The calendar is adding to the problem. Flick said the region is near the peak of long lunar cycles that produce some of the highest tides California sees, and even higher tides are expected around Thanksgiving, Christmas and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A strong storm landing on one of those tides could cause worse flooding.
What to Expect Next
A coastal flood warning remains in effect for the Orange County coast and a coastal flood advisory covers the Los Angeles County coast, including Malibu, until 1 p.m. Thursday. Forecasters say tides are running about 1 to 1.7 feet above predictions in Orange County and about 1 to 1.5 feet above along the L.A. County coast, with flooding possible on harbor walkways, beach parking lots and bike paths. Huntington Beach is handing out free sand and sandbags at its City Corporate Yard, 17371 Gothard St., from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Thursday.
