{"id":495218,"date":"2026-10-14T00:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T00:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/495218\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T00:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T00:48:12","slug":"californias-el-nino-winter-could-be-profoundly-unsubtle-scientists-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/495218\/","title":{"rendered":"California\u2019s El Ni\u00f1o Winter Could Be \u2018Profoundly Unsubtle,\u2019 Scientists Warn"},"content":{"rendered":"

As El Ni\u00f1o continues to strengthen, scientists warn that California could face a winter of intense storms, heavy rain and coastal flooding.<\/p>\n

Oct 13, 2026<\/p>\n

Updated 4:34 pm PT<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A drone photograph of waves crashing against E. Seaside Walk at Peninsula on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026, in Long Beach, California. A climate scientist said California faces rising odds of a very wet winter as El Ni\u00f1o gains strength in the Pacific. \u00a0(Kayla Bartkowski\/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The odds of an unusually wet winter in the Bay Area are rising as El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> continues to strengthen, according to climate scientist Daniel Swain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The UC Agriculture and Natural Resources researcher said that statewide, there\u2019s a \u201c90% to 95% confidence in a wetter-than-average winter,\u201d with the biggest spike most likely to come in January and February.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s walking like an El Ni\u00f1o, and it\u2019s talking like an El Ni\u00f1o,\u201d Swain said during a virtual office hours session on Tuesday. \u201cSo far, it is all systems go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swain\u2019s \u201chigh-key level takeaway\u201d is that October El Ni\u00f1o updates<\/a> show the likelihood of California-related impacts increasing \u201cfrom already pretty high confidence\u201d in September.<\/p>\n

\"\"Visitors navigate breaking waves along the coastline of Windansea Beach in La Jolla on June 20, 2026, in San Diego, California. The National Weather Service issued a beach hazard statement for elevated surf and high risk for rip currents. \u00a0(Kevin Carter\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Swain said all 10 of the major models \u201care singing roughly the same tune\u201d about precipitation possibilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bay Area and the North Bay in particular, all the watersheds there, are more likely to see very wet conditions this winter than not,\u201d Swain said.<\/p>\n

In his most recent blog post<\/a>, Swain said that El Ni\u00f1o will likely strengthen for up to two months before peaking between November and January. But he said that impacts are often delayed to \u201cthe peak intensity\u201d of El Ni\u00f1o itself, and \u201cThis is likely to be true in California.<\/p>\n

\"\"Flooding near the Kappa Marina floating home community in Sausalito on Dec. 4, 2025, during a king tide event.<\/p>\n

El Ni\u00f1o also produces massive Kelvin waves \u2014 when tropical trade winds slow or reverse.\u00a0Swain said they have \u201ccompletely reversed direction\u201d \u2014 allowing warm water to push toward South America.<\/p>\n

That water splits north and south when it hits land. A Kelvin wave has already<\/a> swept along the coast, raising sea levels by more than a foot, along with thermal expansion also caused by El Ni\u00f1o. Another coastally trapped wave is also moving up the coast, but won\u2019t reach California for around three weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Swain is worried that major flooding could occur later this winter with king tides during Thanksgiving week and Christmas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could be a big problem with disruption of transportation on major highways and interstates throughout California that run through low-lying coastal areas,\u201d Swain said. \u201cIf there\u2019s a major storm, we could see major or even record-breaking coastal flooding, and it wouldn\u2019t even take an extreme storm.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As El Ni\u00f1o continues to strengthen, scientists warn that California could face a winter of intense storms, heavy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-495218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495218","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=495218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}