According to the Southern Marin Fire Protection District, tides of 6.5 feet or more will occur every day through Friday. They will peak in the mornings through Thursday, and at 12:14 p.m. on Friday, December 15.
Although no rain is forecast for the week, these tides are high enough to partially flood low lying areas such as the Sausalito–Mill Valley multi–use path, Manzanita Park & Ride lot, Gate 5 and 6 Roads, and some floating home parking lots.
The weather will take a turn for the wetter later this month, according to Dr. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles. On the website Weatherwest, Dr. Swain wrote on December 8:
“Right now, there are some pretty striking things appearing in the long-range ensemble model suites that are worthy of close consideration. That’s especially true as we move from Dec. toward Jan., which will be the most favorable period for coherent coupling between the strong El Nino in the Pacific with the MJO [the Madden–Julian oscillation, a rainy traveling pattern that propagates eastward through the atmosphere above the warm parts of the Indian and Pacific oceans], a dramatic eastward extension of the jet stream beginning within a week near the coast of Japan and then eventually extending across almost the entire North Pacific basin toward the California coast (over 5,000 miles away!) by about 2 weeks from now.
“A relatively dry and warm pattern will continue for the next 7-10 days, then with perhaps gradually more active conditions 10-14 days from now before potentially more dramatic shift toward wet and active conditions after that — most likely sometime during the last week in Dec.”
Rainfall can swell the king tides that are forecast for Christmas and early January:
- Dec 23, 8:05 a.m., 6.6 feet
- Dec 24, 8:46 a.m., 6.7 feet
- Dec 25, 9:26 a.m., 6.7 feet
- Dec 26, 10:07 a.m., 6.6 feet
- Dec 27, 10:46 a.m., 6.4 feet
- Jan 9, 08:55 a.m., 6.6 feet
- Jan 10, 09:42 a.m., 6.8 feet
- Jan 11, 10:30 a.m., 6.9 feet
- Jan 12, 11:19 a.m., 6.9 feet
- Jan 13, 12:10 p.m, 6.6 feet
The California King Tides Project is inviting citizen scientists to photograph extreme high tides on January 11 and 12 and February 9. You can find local King Tide times, browse King Tide photos, and find resources for educators and parents on the California King Tides Project website.
If you take photos for the project, please share them with the Floating Times.