King Tides are back here in the Bay Area and coastal areas are seeing the effects as massive tides splash over barriers and inundate roads and paths.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Ryan Walbrun told KCBS Radio that King Tides occur when the sun, earth and moon align each winter.
"If you're in the Bay Area, we see our highest tides of the year," Walbrun said. "Today at the Golden Gate Bridge it was a little over seven feet."
Low-lying places around Marin and in the San Francisco shoreline have borne the brunt of the flooding, as residents took to social media Saturday to document a drenched Embarcadero and submerged bike path in Marin County.
Bay Area residents are lucky, however, as Walbrun categorized the King Tides as moderate. "Things that we do have in our favor in this King Tidal cycle is we don't have a lot of strong winds and the open ocean we don't have a lot of big waves," he explained. "We're mainly being impacted by the astronomical tide, we don't have those other elements that are really pushing things to big trouble."
King Tides bring high water levels, but they also bring record low tides. Anybody heading out for a little beach walk this evening, just be careful and mindful, Walbrun advised.
Walbrun told KCBS Radio that we are due for another, potentially stronger, King Tide event in January. The tides seem high now, but they may be the new normal in the future as water levels rise due to climate change.
Coastal flood advisories will be ending at 3 p.m. today as the tides begin to subside.
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