California is heading into a winter that scientists expect to produce the highest sea levels ever recorded along the state’s coast. Mark Merrifield of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography said this El Niño is likely to deliver exactly that, per ABC7. Impacts are expected to peak from late December through March.
Here is the part Californians keep getting backwards. A strong El Niño does not guarantee rain — it guarantees a higher ocean. “The risk of coastal flooding is actually very high and almost guaranteed,” climate scientist Daniel Swain told LAist, adding that forecasters now explicitly expect the strongest El Niño event ever observed.
Why the Ocean Is the Sure Thing
Three forces are stacking. El Niño warms the ocean and warm water expands, a century of sea level rise has already added about a foot in the Bay Area, and the tidal cycle peaks around the end of the year, according to KQED.
January’s king tides already hit 7.16 feet in San Francisco. The exposed stretches are familiar: the Embarcadero, Manzanita in Marin County, the shorelines of San Pablo and Monterey bays, and Highways 1 and 101…