The National Weather Service says that morning high tides could rise to a record 8 feet in height Sunday through Thursday along the entire San Diego County coastline, potentially causing damaging erosion and flooding.
“The tallest high tides we’ve ever seen reached 7-feet 8-inches back in November 2015, and we could go even higher than that in the coming week,” said Chandler Price, a weather service forecaster.
“This will affect a lot of low-lying areas, like south Imperial Beach, Cardiff reef, and Tamarack State Park.”
Price attributes the threat to two reasons.
First, tides tend to get unusually high from October through January because Earth reaches its closet point to the sun — that amplifies tidal ranges. Second, El Niño is helping to make the ocean warmer — that causes the water to expand and rise in height.
The sea surface temperature at Scripps Pier in La Jolla hit 73 degrees Saturday, roughly 8 degrees above average.
Some San Diego County beaches have been experiencing deep erosion for months due to a combination of large high tides and big waves generated by tropical storms and hurricanes. The issue has been especially bad at Tamarack State Beach, where erosion has caused enormous damage.
The tides and waves have also posed problems for Metrolink, forcing it to temporarily cancel commercial rail service between south Orange County and San Diego County. Metrolink announced that there will be no service between Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo and Oceanside from Monday through Friday, due to the high tides.