{"id":265072,"date":"2026-02-03T06:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T06:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/265072\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T06:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T06:27:07","slug":"red-alert-high-tides-coastal-flooding-risk-amid-february-king-tides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/265072\/","title":{"rendered":"Red alert high tides: Coastal flooding risk amid February king tides"},"content":{"rendered":"

The tidal wave moves from the West Coast, around the south of the country, then pushes along the East Coast with local bathymetry (submarine features) and coastal shape further affecting the timing of tides.<\/p>\n

February is an uncommon month this year, and not just because of the number of red alert days.<\/p>\n

In addition to the red alert days of the full moon, a further three days between the 19th and 21st are also ones to watch.<\/p>\n

Reeve explains the additional red alert days are a warning of unusually high tides due to the alignment of the sun, moon and earth (around the new moon phase) creating stronger gravitational pull on the oceans. <\/p>\n

When added to the higher declination of the moon as it wobbles in orbit around the earth and the increased draw of the sun in our summer, higher tides are expected, with alerts for coastal areas.<\/p>\n

These high tides, also known as king tides, \u201cgreatly increase the risk of coastal flooding<\/a>, especially when combined with waves, storm surge, or heavy rainfall\u201d, Reeve said. <\/p>\n

And, this week, a low moving in from the Tasman brings the possibility of all three adding to the tidal phenomenon.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause they represent the highest natural tides of the year, king tides also amplify the impact of even minor storms or onshore winds,\u201d Reeve warned.<\/p>\n

\u201cA storm that might otherwise cause little flooding could produce significant inundation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The outlook for tides to impact our lives is only increasing with climate change and sea level rise, cautions Reeve.<\/p>\n

\u201cSea-level rise is causing tides that once only caused nuisance flooding to become more frequent,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis leads to changes in coastal flooding regimes … where previously rare coastal flooding events are expected to occur more regularly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tidal wave moves from the West Coast, around the south of the country, then pushes along the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[2840,41242,534,17517,1558,6162,9191,16123,28903,273,6750,19876,2070,6098,305,2959,13484,9860,6048,108531,8036,118563,111,139,69,1523,15406,7192,147,7812,6100,35141,6047,102],"class_list":["post-265072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-across","tag-alert","tag-amid","tag-because","tag-been","tag-cloud","tag-coastal","tag-cover","tag-effects","tag-environment","tag-february","tag-flooding","tag-full","tag-hard","tag-have","tag-high","tag-higher","tag-king","tag-makaurau","tag-mondays","tag-moon","tag-motu","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-red","tag-risk","tag-science","tag-seen","tag-still","tag-tides","tag-tmaki","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}