King Tides Swamp Both U.S. Coasts Without a Storm

King Tides Swamp Both U.S. Coasts Without a Storm

Sunny skies, flooded streets from California to the Carolinas

The year's highest tides arrived with this week's full moon and poured into beach towns on both U.S. coasts, sending seawater over streets and into homes and businesses in California, Florida and the Carolinas. In Huntington Beach, residents stacked sandbags outside doorways while others paddled down streets on paddleboards and surfboards. A flooded stretch of Pacific Coast Highway was closed to traffic, and forecasters warned flooding in some spots could run into the weekend.

Warnings stretch to the weekend as high tides peak mid-morning

Most of Florida's Atlantic coast was under flood warnings through early Friday, with significant coastal flooding expected in Southern California through Oct. 29 and minor flooding in low-lying shoreline and tidal waterways in Northern California through Saturday. Coastal flooding generally struck within about 1 1/2 hours on either side of high tide, which peaks 1.9 feet above normal in Northern California. Street flooding was reported in Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with rip currents possible as far north as North Carolina's Outer Banks.

Moon alignment plus warm water pushed tides far above predictions

King tides come from the alignment of the Earth, moon and sun and can happen several times a year for several days. This round was supercharged. Over Florida, strong high pressure to the north and low pressure over the Caribbean built bigger swells, while along California a super El Nino warmed the ocean and Kelvin-wave pulses of warm water lifted the sea surface. The National Weather Service in San Diego said observed high tides ran 1.5 to 1.7 feet above astronomical predictions.

Gauges rewrite record books in San Pedro, La Jolla and Miami

At San Pedro in Los Angeles Harbor, the Oct. 26 high tide came in just above 8 feet, an all-time record for a gauge operating since November 1923, beating the 7.93 feet set on Jan. 10, 2005; preliminary data Tuesday showed 8.19 feet just after 9:45 a.m. At La Jolla, the gauge reached a preliminary 7.98 feet (2.43 m) Tuesday, above the 7.81-foot mark from November 2015. At Virginia Key off Miami, the gauge hit 2.54 feet above mean higher high water on Oct. 27, the highest king tide since records began in 1994 and the third-highest level overall behind hurricanes Irma and Wilma. Lake Worth Pier hit 2.7 feet on Oct. 27.

Shops, homes and highways take the hit while life goes on

Low-lying homes and businesses bore the brunt: water ran into shopping streets in Newport Beach, part of Pacific Coast Highway at Sunset Beach closed, and visitors to the Fort Lauderdale boat show waded through flooded streets. Boynton Beach handed out free sandbags, and one longtime resident said water now pools at his nearly 100-year-old house as surrounding lots were built higher. Outside a coffee shop in Southern California, people walked through knee-deep water and paddled past, photographed by a worker there.

Scientists see a preview of a higher-sea future

Researchers say calm-weather records are the point: higher seas mean tides alone can now do what storms once did. A University of Miami researcher said an passing low-pressure system bulldozed water onto the South Florida coast on top of a tide already forecast since January to be the year's worst. With morning high tides near 9 to 10 a.m. pushing water back up storm drains onto roads and parking lots, officials urge residents to move cars, protect low doorways and time travel around the high-tide window.