{"id":454897,"date":"2026-09-05T22:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T22:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/454897\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T22:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T22:38:10","slug":"heres-why-oaklands-iconic-lake-merritt-flooded-this-week-and-how-its-considered-a-tidal-estuary-per-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/454897\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s why Oakland’s iconic Lake Merritt flooded this week and how it’s considered a tidal estuary, per expert"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) — Unusually high water levels flooded portions of Lake Merritt this week, surprising visitors and temporarily disrupting access around the popular Oakland destination.<\/p>\n

“Oh, I’ve never seen it like that. This is like, flooding all over,” said Oakland resident Fuzzy Asfaha.<\/p>\n

The flooding stopped him from using his usual walk around the lake.<\/p>\n

“Usually we take the same route, but we cannot pass it,” Asfaha said. “Yesterday was special. I don’t know what it is.”<\/p>\n

To understand what caused the flooding, we turned to local experts familiar with the waterway.<\/p>\n

MORE: Bay Area nonprofit urges residents to prepare for El Ni\u00f1o, potentially dangerous weather this winter<\/a><\/p>\n

Adrian Cotter with Rotary Nature Center Friends said he heard the lake was flooding on Thursday and went to see what was going on.<\/p>\n

“I came down to the lake and saw it had definitely flooded,” Cotter said.<\/p>\n

Cotter said the first thing people should know is the name ‘Lake Merritt’ is misleading. “Lake Merritt is not technically a real lake,” he said.<\/p>\n

MORE: Bay Area communities step up flood preps as CA could face ‘historic’ El Ni\u00f1o winter<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, it is a tidal estuary, meaning water levels rise and fall with ocean tides.<\/p>\n

Cotter said the flow of water is controlled by four tide gates.<\/p>\n

“They monitor the tide at the Golden Gate and when it gets to a certain height, or when they know it’s going to get to a certain height. They’ll close the gates,” he said.<\/p>\n

Cotter believes the unusually high water was linked to weather conditions far from Oakland.<\/p>\n

“I suspect it was storm surge from the tropical storms that are churning out in the Pacific,” he said.<\/p>\n

According to Cotter, the storms pushed additional water into the estuary through tide gates that were likely open, causing water to spill onto surrounding walkways.<\/p>\n

He said similar flooding could occur again this winter if storms coincide with high tides during the El Nino weather patter.<\/p>\n

“We get lots of storms coming in from the Pacific. We can get more storm surges. If those are at times with high tides, those that can cause flooding,” Cotter said.<\/p>\n

\"Now<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) — Unusually high water levels flooded portions of Lake Merritt this week, surprising visitors and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[179627,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-454897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-179627","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454897","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=454897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}