![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/261020-El-Nino-Future-01-KQED-7039cd15.jpg\")
<\/p>\nResearchers warn that this winter\u2019s El Ni\u00f1o impacts could be a window into the future, with higher seas and more intense storms. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Flooding at Mare Island from winter 2016-2017 floods. Two new reports highlight vulnerable places along the California coast and suggest this El Ni\u00f1o could preview the decades ahead. \u00a0(Courtesy of Fraser Shilling\/UC Davis)<\/p>\n
Flooded highways. Inundated airport runways. Water-filled neighborhoods. Beaches washed away. All of these impacts, and more, could take place this winter as El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> continues to unfold.<\/p>\n Several new reports this week suggest that El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s effects<\/a> this winter \u2014 flooding from temporarily high seas<\/a> and potential storms \u2014 foreshadow a future shaped by human-caused climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is really a preview of the near future,\u201d said Fraser Shilling, director of the Road Ecology Center at UC Davis. \u201cWe can think of it as training wheels. This is what\u2019s coming down the road, and we really need to figure out how to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Shilling published a special report<\/a> highlighting the areas of the state he\u2019s most worried about during El Ni\u00f1o conditions. His concerns span the California coast \u2014 Southern California cities already battered by waves, San Luis Obispo, parts of the Bay Area, Stinson Beach and Humboldt Bay.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey are places that have flooded during extreme events before,\u201d Shilling said. \u201cIt is possible that we\u2019ll see tipping points, and these systems will just change. If a town or neighborhood has been flooded before, maybe people will just leave and not come back.\u201d<\/p>\n Shilling said the recent flooding in Southern California offers a glimpse into what the rest of coastal California could experience this winter, especially along vulnerable highways and other low-lying infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beyond areas likely to flood, his report shows places with a lower chance that could become high risk if they fill with ocean water, rain, or both. Examples include major highways near waterways, like Highway 37 near Novato Creek, and airports with runways built on fill near San Francisco Bay.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s be optimistic and say that there\u2019s a low probability that [airports] are going to flood,\u201d Shilling said. \u201cBut if they flood, that\u2019s a high impact even if it\u2019s temporary.\u201d<\/p>\n The report comes at a time when \u201cscience is under attack\u201d by the Trump administration, Langridge said.<\/p>\n Moves include revoking the state\u2019s Clean Air Act vehicle waivers<\/a>, pressing for new offshore oil leases<\/a> and trying to limit the California Coastal Commission\u2019s authority<\/a>, among other actions. The administration also cut funding<\/a> for the National Climate Assessment in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEyes will be turned on to what California is seeing in our assessment,\u201d Langridge said. \u201cWe want to be sure that a factual story is getting out, and sometimes you\u2019re not hearing that on the federal level.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the report\u2019s major findings is that California\u2019s Central Coast<\/a>, roughly from the Bay Area to Santa Barbara, is likely headed toward a future where climate extremes are even more the norm: hotter days, more intense droughts and stronger storms.\u00a0<\/p>\n The assessment finds that weather patterns are intensifying, especially around heat, with typical hot months getting even warmer and the rainy season getting shorter, with more intense bursts in January and February. By the end of the century, the region\u2019s rainiest day could be up to 30% wetter.<\/p>\n \u201cThe amount of precipitation might not change, but it\u2019s going to come in great big deluges,\u201d Langridge said.<\/p>\n UC Santa Cruz researchers created a tool, CoSMoS Adapts<\/a>, that helps coastal communities visualize future flooding and erosion risks.<\/p>\n It may also help cities understand how nature-based solutions, like offshore reefs or restoring dunes, could save money and protect property and infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cStrictly about coastal flooding and erosion, after the 2050s, things start to become much more difficult to manage with the kind of tools that we\u2019ve been thinking about at a whole variety of levels,\u201d said Michael Beck, professor and director of the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz.<\/p>\n The pilot analyzes risk in Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay and Ventura. On LinkedIn, Beck posted a visualization<\/a> of what flooding in Santa Cruz could look like this winter from large waves, king tides, Kelvin waves<\/a>, thermal expansion and storm surge.<\/p>\n The work could soon include Los Angeles and Orange counties. Beck said he would like to expand to other parts of the region, like the Bay Area.\u00a0<\/p>\n He said the already-thrashing waves along the coast, nearly a foot of temporary sea level rise (and more to come) and potential back-to-back storms this winter connected to El Ni\u00f1o will likely become California\u2019s more frequent future reality.<\/p>\n \u201cThe kinds of things that we both have seen with this El Ni\u00f1o down south and that we are anticipating those seasons might become more regular by the 2050s,\u201d Beck said. \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o for us is that reminder that these risks are real, they\u2019re here, they\u2019re now, and they are growing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers warn that this winter\u2019s El Ni\u00f1o impacts could be a window into the future, with higher seas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-504435","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\/504435","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=504435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/NationalWeatherServiceGetty.jpg\")
An automated National Weather Service weather station collects data on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Montara, California, on April 5, 2016. \u00a0(Paul Chinn\/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2023_01_12_KJ_0147_Storms_Road_Closed.jpg\")
A road is closed by flooding near the Colusa County town of Williams in the Sacramento Valley. The area was one of many across California to experience high water during the series of storms that began rolling into the state Dec. 26, 2022. \u00a0(Kenneth James\/California Department of Water Resources)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/KelvinWavesGetty-8a3fc0db.jpg\")
Reed Freidinger walks with his dog along a flooded Sausalito\/Mill Valley bike path during the King Tide in Mill Valley, California, on Jan. 3, 2022. \u00a0(Josh Edelson\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n