Ferocious waves as high as 60 feet crashed into the California coast on Saturday as forecasters issued some of their bluntest warnings of the year, telling beachgoers in plain language to stay away from the water entirely. The monster surf is the leading edge of a train of Pacific storms, fueled by an atmospheric river and a strengthening El Niño, that is set to batter the West Coast with heavy rain, mountain snow and dangerous seas well into next week.
 |
| File photo: A large wave breaks off the California coast. Forecasters warned Saturday that exposed beaches could see waves of 40 feet or more, with sets topping 60 feet. |
The National Weather Service's Bay Area office did not mince words on Saturday morning. "DO NOT GO TO THE BEACH/COAST TODAY," the office wrote on X, after an offshore buoy recorded seas of 32 feet with a 21-second period — the kind of long-period swell that turns into far larger breaking waves at the shoreline. At that height, the forecasters said, fully exposed beaches could see waves of 40 feet or more, with sets in excess of 60 feet.
"Not a safe day to be in or even near the water," the office added. "Watch from webcams and local news." Weather graphics issued by the National Weather Service warned of 50-foot waves threatening the coast, and forecasters later repeated the message even more directly: "Skip the beach today — the waves are impressive, but they're also deadly. No selfie is worth risking your life."
The warnings came as a series of powerful Pacific storms began slamming into the West Coast. Internet meteorologist Max Velocity described the setup in a video published Thursday as a "giant train of storms" set to bring heavy snow, inches of rain and very high winds to California, Oregon and Washington. According to weather.com, the storm series is fueled by an atmospheric river and will bring rounds of rain, heavy wet mountain snow, potentially damaging waves and gusty winds to the West well into next week.
A Warning in Plain Language
The National Weather Service's warnings stretched the length of the coast. In Southern California, a high surf advisory for Los Angeles County went into effect at 2 p.m. on Friday and continues through 3 p.m. on Tuesday, with surf expected to reach 7 to 12 feet on Saturday. Forecasters said widespread rainfall would begin Friday and continue into Saturday, with elevated surf fueling dangerous rip currents and breaking waves.
Farther north, the danger was far greater. Forecasters warned on Friday that up to 30-foot breaking waves could arrive off San Francisco, southern Monterey Bay and the Big Sur coast on Friday evening, with occasional sets of 40 to 50 feet possible. "Large breaking waves will run up beaches and crash over seawalls, inundating adjacent, low-lying infrastructure," the latest National Weather Service advisory read. The agency urged people not to enter the water and to stay off waterside infrastructure including jetties, piers and rocks.
The surf's impact was expected to peak on Saturday and potentially again on Monday. The danger is not theoretical. A 24-year-old woman disappeared last week after a wave hit her and her friends following a bonfire party on a beach. The group had been relaxing on the sand when powerful waves crashed into them, dragging them underwater. All but the 24-year-old made it to safety.
 |
| File photo: Waves crash against a seawall in front of beachfront homes in Pacifica, California, where forecasters warned of dangerous sneaker waves on Saturday. |
Pacifica: Waves Over the Seawall
Nowhere was the drama more visible on Saturday than in Pacifica, a coastal city in San Mateo County just south of San Francisco. Video from the scene showed sneaker waves surging over a sea wall, sending shocked onlookers sprinting away from the churning water. The waves were so severe that they appeared to threaten a coastal Taco Bell, a detail that quickly spread online.
"Can we please get the national guard dispatched to the pacifica taco bell?" SFGate Editor-in-Chief Grant Marek joked on social media, capturing the mix of awe and alarm the surf inspired. Forecasters, for their part, were not joking. In response to the Pacifica video, they repeated their warning to skip the beach entirely.
Pacifica's exposed shoreline has long been vulnerable to big surf. Sneaker waves — sudden, much larger waves that arrive without warning among smaller ones — can sweep across a beach that looked safe moments earlier, and the National Weather Service says the risk of rip currents, sneaker waves and drowning in coastal waters is very high this weekend.
The Storm Train Behind the Surf
The waves are only the most visible part of a much larger weather pattern. The storms are part of what is expected to be a historic El Niño. The latest outlook, released Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says El Niño is expected to intensify through the end of the year, according to SFGate. El Niño is a periodic warming of the Pacific Ocean that turbocharges storm systems and disrupts weather patterns around the globe.
Forecasters anticipate that giant storms off the coast will continue to whip up large waves as the El Niño phenomenon strengthens into the winter. The same pattern has already brought flooding to California's coast in recent months, with storm systems and high tides causing dramatic property destruction and leaving coastal communities feeling particularly vulnerable.
According to weather.com, the most potent of the current storm systems could bring waves as high as 30 feet in nearshore waters through early Sunday, potentially breaking to 50 feet at favored spots, with the highest waves most likely from Northern California to the Oregon coast. Into Monday, the wave activity is expected to be slightly less potent but widespread across much of the West Coast, and a smaller storm system in the middle of next week could bring another round of heightened waves.
Rain, Snow and Flooding Inland
While the coast takes the brunt of the surf, the storms are also delivering heavy rain and snow inland. By Sunday morning, heavy rain and high-elevation snow were expected to hit parts of Washington, Oregon and Northern California, spreading from the Bay Area to western Montana by the evening. Rainfall will likely reach 1 to 2 inches in many areas, with the heaviest totals along the foothills.
By Monday, the rain and mountain snow will shift to the Intermountain West, with the Southern Sierra Nevada expected to see snowfall of 1 to 2 feet by the end of the day. Snowfall totals of more than 2 feet are possible in the Sierra Nevada by the end of the week, and travel through the mountains will be very difficult, with high snowfall rates and low visibility. Strong winds will further complicate travel.
Tuesday brings a new concern: soils along the coast will have been softened by the earlier rounds of rain, so the flooding potential is greater than over the weekend, particularly near wildfire burn scars, where mudslides and debris flows become a greater threat. Forecasters said the first round of rain will largely be beneficial — but the risk rises with each storm that follows.
 |
| File photo: A wave explodes over a concrete seawall on the California coast as a series of Pacific storms drives dangerous surf. |
What This Means
Saturday's monster surf is a preview of the winter ahead, not a one-day event. The combination of a strengthening El Niño, a train of atmospheric-river storms and high tides is exactly the setup that has produced California's most damaging coastal winters in the past, and forecasters expect the pattern to persist into the winter months.
For coastal residents, the message is about exposure. Homes, roads and seawalls built hard against the Pacific are only as safe as the ocean allows, and Saturday showed how quickly a routine beach day can become a life-threatening situation. For the rest of the West, the storms are a mixed picture: the rain and mountain snow are badly needed, and the first rounds will largely be beneficial — but the same storms that fill reservoirs can also flood roads and strand drivers in mountain passes, and the danger will grow as the ground saturates and each new storm arrives on top of the last.
What Happens Next
The high surf advisory for Los Angeles County runs through 3 p.m. on Tuesday, and forecasters expect the wave threat to ease somewhat into Monday before a smaller storm system brings another chance of heightened waves in the middle of next week. Another storm will approach the West Coast around Wednesday, focusing heavy rain and mountain snow on the Sierra Nevada.
The National Weather Service will keep updating its advisories as the storm train moves through. For now, the advice from forecasters is simple, and they have repeated it all weekend: skip the beach, watch from a distance, and remember that no photograph is worth risking a life.
Post a Comment