Days of flooding set for SoCal as forecasts call for 8-foot tidal surges: ‘Never seen anything like this’

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Southern California’s coastline is bracing for another round of flooding as unusually high tides threaten to swamp roads, inundate homes and businesses, erode beaches and disrupt train service for days.

The National Weather Service has issued a coastal flood warning for Orange County’s coast from Sunday morning through Thursday afternoon, while coastal areas of Los Angeles and Ventura counties are under flood advisories.

The worst of the flooding is expected during morning high tides Monday through Thursday, with tides potentially reaching one-and-a-half-feet above predicted levels and water pushing inland across vulnerable stretches of coastline.

In Newport Beach, officials expect tides to reach at least 6 feet starting Monday, with levels potentially climbing above 8 feet. Low-lying homes and businesses along the Orange County coast could be inundated, forecasters warned.

The latest threat comes after floodwater covered parts of the Balboa Peninsula earlier this month, leaving residents scrambling to protect their properties.

“I’ve lived here 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Newport Beach resident Laura Hamilton said. “Down this street… There was just water all the way down.”

Hamilton is now preparing for another potential deluge, piling up sandbags and clearing vulnerable areas inside her home.

“Everything… sandbags upon sandbags, just trying to make sure everything is cleared off my floor,” she said.

The threat extends beyond private property. Flooding could hit beach parking lots, bike paths and walkways in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, while powerful high tides threaten to chew away at already vulnerable beaches.

Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley said county crews have been working to clear waterways and reduce the risk of flooding.

“County public works teams and flood district teams have been clearing all the debris from all the gutters, clearing the flood channels, making sure that we don’t have people living in the flood channels. We don’t want anyone getting hurt,” Foley said.

In Long Beach, crews are rebuilding and reinforcing sand berms in an effort to shield the coastline from the rising water.

So why are the tides running so high?

Dave Munyan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, pointed to a combination of warmer ocean temperatures and shifting Pacific Ocean conditions linked to El Niño.

“From a multitude of factors — one being the warmer sea surface temperatures we’re seeing off the coast contributing to a thermal expansion of the water. A warmer body of water will be a little bit thicker. The other factor is, it’s been a media buzzword, kind of over the last several weeks and months, but Kelvin wave influences, kind of driven by the ongoing El Niño across the Pacific Ocean, kind of producing a slosh effect, which is kind of bolstering those background tides,” Munyan said.

Officials are urging residents to monitor local alerts, watch for road closures and never drive around barricades or through floodwater.

The rising tides are also threatening to snarl travel along the coast.

Metrolink plans to suspend Orange County Line service south of the Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo station from Monday through Friday, disrupting travel along the vulnerable coastal corridor toward San Clemente and Oceanside.

The advance notice is intended to give passengers time to find alternatives while helping prevent weather-related disruptions from spreading across the broader rail network.

“It also reduces cascading effects that happen to the rest of the Metrolink system north of Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo. It also provides greater flexibility for Amtrak and freight trains to navigate any weather-related restrictions or delays that will happen next week,” Metrolink public relations manager Brett Hawkins said.

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