8.02 Feet: San Pedro Tide Gauge Breaks 2005 Record

Southern California communities from Newport Beach to Long Beach were inundated Monday as high tides pushed sea levels to record and near-record heights, straining municipal budgets and threatening low-lying commercial property along a coastline already damaged this year. The National Weather Service has issued a coastal flood warning for Orange and San Diego counties through Thursday afternoon.

The San Pedro tide gauge reached 8.02 feet Monday morning, surpassing the 7.93-foot mark recorded in January 2005. La Jolla registered 7.75 feet, just below its 7.81-foot record set in November 2015. Newport Beach measured 8 feet on Sunday and 8.3 feet on Monday, roughly 2 feet above what the high tide alone would produce. The city's coastline could reach 8.5 feet on Tuesday at 9:50 a.m. and again on Wednesday at 10:28 a.m.

At Los Angeles Harbor, the record stands at 7.92 feet, set in January 2005. The weather service office in Oxnard projects 8.1 feet on Tuesday and 8 feet on Wednesday at that location; Sunday's preliminary reading reached 7.71 feet. Total water levels this week across Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties could exceed 8 feet above baseline, which the weather service defines as the average daily lowest level observed between 1983 and 2001.

Georgia Rios, a spokesperson for Newport Beach, said roughly 25,000 sandbags were distributed over the weekend. "We really saw the community come out," she said, adding that resident preparation limited damage. Crews on Monday pumped knee-high water from streets and reinforced sandbags along the harbor side of the Balboa Peninsula, where water surged from Newport Harbor onto Balboa Fun Zone businesses during Monday's peak. In Long Beach, residents reported flooding at Bayshore Beach, Naples and the Peninsula.

Chandler Price, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego, said La Jolla's Sunday reading reached 7.66 feet. "That's very close to the record at the station, which is 7.81 feet," Price said. "At this rate, considering we're expecting higher tides tomorrow, we could break it."

Warm ocean water is adding to the tide height. Scientists said water levels along the California coast are running 1.25 to 1.8 feet above what gravitational forces alone would produce. The Scripps Pier gauge in La Jolla hit roughly 77 degrees in early August against an average maximum near 70, and read about 73 on Thursday against an average of 66 for that date. The elevated temperatures reflect human-caused climate change, an El Nino-fueled Kelvin wave, and a marine heat wave unrelated to El Nino.

The weather service warned that "Significant coastal flooding expected" in Orange and San Diego counties, adding that low-lying homes, businesses and some critical infrastructure will be inundated. A coastal flood advisory covering Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties notes that isolated structural damage from seawater is possible in vulnerable areas.

Reinhard Flick, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, said tides around Thanksgiving, Christmas and Martin Luther King Jr. Day will be exceptionally high because the moon sits near the peaks of the 18.6-year lunar node tidal cycle and the 4.4-year lunar perigee tidal cycle. Those cycles arise from small changes in the moon's orbit that affect tide-generating forces.

Newport Beach recorded 8.3 feet on Monday.