San Pedro tides break 2005 record as SoCal coast floods

Water levels at the San Pedro tide gauge reached 8.02 feet on Monday morning, a figure that surpassed the previous regional record of 7.93 feet set in January 2005.

This record-breaking surge coincided with widespread flooding across Southern California communities. In Newport Beach, water from Newport Harbor spilled onto the streets of the Balboa Peninsula, inundating parts of the Balboa Fun Zone. Residents in Long Beach reported similar flooding along Bayshore Beach, Naples, and the Peninsula.

City crews in both locations worked to pump out knee-high water and reinforce sandbags along the harbor side. Georgia Rios, a spokesperson for Newport Beach, credited local residents for limiting the damage. "We saw about 25,000 sandbags go this weekend," Rios said. "We really saw the community come out. So I think a lot of the success of not having immense amount of flooding damage is due to residents taking part and grabbing sandbags for their homes."

The National Weather Service issued a coastal flood warning for Orange and San Diego counties that remains in effect through Thursday afternoon. The agency described the expected conditions as significant coastal flooding, noting that low-lying property, including homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure, would be inundated. Some shoreline erosion was also expected during morning hours.

The extreme water levels result from a rare alignment of three threats: El Niño, an active eastern Pacific hurricane season, and a marine heat wave. This combination is amplified by an astronomical alignment that occurs only once every 20 years. Total water levels in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties could exceed 8 feet above the baseline, which is defined as the average daily lowest water level observed between 1983 and 2001.

Record-hot ocean temperatures are driving these levels. Scientists state that seawater levels are currently 1.25 to 1.8 feet higher than they would be from lunar and solar forces alone. A surface temperature reading at Scripps Pier in La Jolla reached approximately 73 degrees on Thursday, well above the average of 66 for this time of year. The annual high for that location was around 77 degrees in early August.

In La Jolla, officials recorded sea levels at 7.75 feet on Monday, just below the station's record of 7.81 feet set in November 2015. Chandler Price, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego, noted that higher tides are expected on Tuesday. "At this rate, considering we're expecting higher tides tomorrow, we could break it," Price said.

Further north, a coastal flood advisory covers Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties. The weather service indicated that isolated damage to structures in vulnerable areas is possible. In Los Angeles Harbor, projected seawater levels could hit 8.1 feet on Tuesday and 8 feet on Wednesday, according to the weather service office in Oxnard.

Reinhard Flick, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, explained that the current tides are exceptionally extreme due to the proximity of peaks in the 18.6-year lunar node tidal cycle and the 4.4-year lunar perigee tidal cycle. If large storms develop during the upcoming king tides around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the risk of coastal flooding will increase further.