{"id":511910,"date":"2026-10-29T15:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T15:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/511910\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T15:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T15:26:12","slug":"socal-coast-braces-for-more-flooding-as-el-ninos-high-tides-break-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/511910\/","title":{"rendered":"SoCal coast braces for more flooding as El Ni\u00f1o’s high tides break records"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Southern California coastal communities are bracing for more flooding Thursday and Friday<\/a> as El Ni\u00f1o conditions keep water levels very high.<\/p>\n

The forecast<\/p>\n

Unusually high tides that have brought flooding to low-lying areas in Southern California including Newport Beach and Long Beach may linger longer than initially predicted.<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service on Wednesday extended flood advisories for all of Southern California\u2019s coastal counties through 2 p.m. Friday, said Devin Black, a meteorologist for the weather service\u2019s Oxnard office. They were originally scheduled to expire Thursday at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n

Orange and San Diego counties, which were under a more severe flood warning through Thursday afternoon, will be downgraded to a coastal advisory through Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The weather service has seen reports of \u201cseawater over low-lying areas,\u201d Black said, and \u201csome structures have had shallow water up to the base of the building.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"High <\/p>\n

High tide floods businesses and homes along Pacific Coast Highway at Sunset Beach<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The impact<\/p>\n

The Balboa area of Newport Beach has seen widespread flooding this week. Another hard-hit area is Sunset Beach, where several streets have been flooded and Pacific Coast Highway is closed. Caltrans plans to close PCH for a portion of Thursday as well.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Long Beach was most acutely affected<\/a> and has been a main area of concern for the last several weeks, Black said.<\/p>\n

Tides are expected to approach 8 feet Thursday morning, then gradually subside into the weekend.<\/p>\n

Some tides this week broke records: \u201cThey were definitely on the extreme end,\u201d Black said.<\/p>\n

Though tides were high across the region, \u201cthe angle and magnitude of the swells is a huge factor too,\u201d Black said, so the risk to San Diego and Orange counties was higher as they were more exposed to a southwesterly swell.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next?<\/p>\n

For coastal communities, this could be the beginning of a long winter season. Even higher tides are expected around the Thanksgiving, Christmas and Martin Luther King Jr. Day holidays, and if a strong storm arrives during those times, it could result in even more severe flooding.<\/p>\n

Something like that happened during the historic storm of late January 1983, which occurred during one of the strongest El Ni\u00f1os on record and battered the coast up and down California, damaging many piers. A strong storm arrived at precisely a time of the month when the tides were very high.<\/p>\n

While the pace of coastal flooding may feel unbelievable to some, it was predicted<\/a> months ago, during a town hall where Mark Merrifield, director of UC San Diego\u2019s Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation, warned that he expected \u201clikely the highest sea levels ever recorded on the California coast associated with this event,\u201d referring to the strengthening El Ni\u00f1o. \u201cFlooding … along the Southern California coast is likely to be a major issue for the winter season.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s going on?<\/p>\n

Ocean temperatures have been affected not only by human-caused climate change but also an El Ni\u00f1o-fueled Kelvin wave<\/a> that brings warmer water from the equatorial Pacific Ocean up and down the coast of the Americas, and a months-old marine heat wave<\/a> unrelated to El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n

Scientists say this marine heat wave has caused seawater levels to rise 1.25 to 1.8 feet higher than they would be just from the movement of the moon, Earth and sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southern California coastal communities are bracing for more flooding Thursday and Friday as El Ni\u00f1o conditions keep water…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,197117,10648,2424,46269,147449,197118,60,5860,5681,84,103783,185868,1009,2429,430],"class_list":["post-511910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-devin-black","tag-el-nino","tag-friday","tag-high-tide","tag-low-lying-area","tag-more-flooding","tag-national-weather-service","tag-newport-beach","tag-record","tag-san-diego-county","tag-seawater","tag-socal-coast","tag-southern-california","tag-thursday","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511910","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=511910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}