California\u2019s highest tide of the year, commonly known as a \u201cKing Tide,\u201d is expected to come in on Monday, just before 9 p.m. in La Jolla and all along the coast.<\/p>\n
The year\u2019s biggest tides occur during winter mornings and summer afternoons, with this year\u2019s peak tide expected to roll in on Monday, reaching almost 7.2 feet in elevation.<\/p>\n
Reinhard Flick, a research associate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography<\/a>, explained that king tides, or what he likes to call \u201cpeak high tides,\u201d can be predicted using astronomy and water responses.<\/p>\n For Flick, \u201cpeak high tides\u201d are the best way to describe these events \u2013 \u201calbeit less majestic,\u201d he added \u2013 because they account for tide frequency and years-long cycles.\u00a0<\/p>\n A big misconception about king tides, Flick said, is that they are typically associated with big storms.<\/p>\n Tides, he said, are the water\u2019s response to gravitational pull from the sun and moon, changing with the Earth\u2019s relative position in orbit. That\u2019s the difference between them and wind-driven waves.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the West Coast, tides occur with a mix of diurnal and semi-diurnal components, meaning highs and lows twice every 12 and 24 hours.<\/p>\n According to California Sea Grant<\/a>, a state and federally funded coastal research partnership, \u201cAlthough the elevated water levels of king tides and perigean spring tides increase the likelihood of flooding, a large majority of coastal damage in California comes from when swell (i.e. wave) and\/or storm (i.e. rain) events coincide with moderate to high tides.\u201d<\/p>\n But historical storms in Southern California, such as the 1998 Ventura floods,<\/a> causing hundreds of millions of dollars in cumulative damage, occurred close to peak high tides, explaining the confusion.<\/p>\n Yearly peak measurements, from historical data, are known to run quite accurately each year, Flick noted, with only slight variances.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce you measure it for a while, and you know what the [water] response is, you can make predictions that are really accurate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n What may be concerning is not specifically king tides, Flick said, but the rapid rise of Southern California\u2019s water elevation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Historically, he said, that elevation measures about 2 millimeters per year. But that has increased to 3-4 millimeters, which in turn increases the risk of not just storms but coastal flooding and increased damage along the coast when warm El Ni\u00f1o waters arrive in the late fall.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the sea level goes up,\u201d Flick said, \u201cthere will be tidal flooding without the benefit of high waves and storm surge.\u201d<\/p>\n Areas that could face the most impact along the West Coast are airports, as many are built on flat, coastal land like San Francisco and San Diego.\u00a0<\/p>\n Monday\u2019s waves are expected to be calm since storms aren\u2019t anticipated, but updates will be posted on UC San Diego\u2019s Coastal Data Information Program<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n California Sea Grant and other coastal initiatives encourage observing Monday\u2019s king tides to picture what Southern California\u2019s sea level might look like in the future. For tide data, look to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Tides and Currents<\/a> site for more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California\u2019s highest tide of the year, commonly known as a \u201cKing Tide,\u201d is expected to come in on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[930,74,76,75,40679],"class_list":["post-395934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-la-jolla","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-scripps-institution-of-oceanography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}