King tides are back in Santa Cruz County this week

King tides will return to the shores of Santa Cruz this week, bringing a risk of flooding, though not nearly as much as around the New Year’s weekend.

King tides are unusually extreme tides that occur when both the sun and the moon are at their closest to the earth, aligning their strongest gravitational pulls to create the highest and lowest tides to hit the coast. 

The National Weather Service said the king tides will be here starting midweek and peaking Thursday and Friday. High tides are expected to rise up to 6.9 feet at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday and at 11:19 a.m. on Friday. 

Some coastal areas could flood during high tide, particularly from mid-morning to mid-afternoon each day. Flooding, however, will not be to the extent of the damage from storms in the past few weeks, the weather service said.

The low tides can reveal tide pools along the shorelines, with the water as low as minus-1.6 feet at 5:32 p.m. on Thursday and at 6:15 p.m. on Friday. The tide pools are often inaccessible, California State Parks warned, while the extreme high tides can cause powerful waves that can crash unexpectedly high on beaches and cliffs.

Those hoping to catch a glimpse of the king tides should bundle up. Temperatures are expected to dip into the 30s for much of the rest of the week, the weather service said, with some light rain in the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday. More wet weather is forecast to return starting Saturday.

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