Powerful waves lash California coast as storm threatens more damage

Powerful waves thrashed communities along California’s southern coast Friday, damaging homes and sending water cascading through streets as residents braced for more potential damage wrought by Tropical Storm Rachel.

The storm system churning in the Pacific was expected to make a rare West Coast landfall near the California–Mexico border early Sunday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), with the potential for strong winds and heavy rains that could cause further destruction and coastal flooding.

The powerful surf, exacerbated by the morning’s high tide, slammed into coastal communities, including Long Beach, where significant sections of the boardwalk crumbled under the pounding waves and several homes suffered serious structural damage.

Areas including Long Beach and Malibu continued to face the likelihood of damaging seawater flooding over the weekend, the NWS warned.

High tides of more than 7 feet (2.1 meters) will be common each morning, said the U.S. weather agency.

Local officials earlier this week distributed sandbags to residents in vulnerable communities.

Rachel had been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm but, even in a slightly weakened state, posed coastal hazards including flooding, a risk expected to peak around Sunday morning, Carol Ciliberti, an NWS meteorologist in Southern California, told AFP.

A tropical storm watch is in effect for all of San Diego County, which borders Mexico, marking only the second time a tropical storm watch has ever been issued in California.

Potentially historic El Niño

The most recent NWS advisory said the system’s maximum sustained winds are near 45 miles (75 kilometers) per hour, with higher gusts.

Rachel is the latest named storm in this year’s unusually active Pacific hurricane season, fueled by the recurring El Niño pattern that this time around is particularly extreme.

El Niño, which occurs approximately every two to seven years, raises surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean and causes global changes in winds and rainfall.

In the Pacific, the weather phenomenon weakens vertical wind shear, allowing storm systems there to grow stronger.

Human-caused climate change can worsen El Niño’s impacts. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, allowing rains to become more intense.

“You kind of get the fingerprints of climate change everywhere you look,” Marc Alessi, a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told AFP.

This year’s El Niño has continued to strengthen. U.S. climate prediction scientists this week reported that the likelihood the pattern would reach strong to very strong levels into the winter, potentially making history, was now at 83%.

Another factor contributing to flood risk in California is an enormous, slow-moving surge of water on the U.S. West Coast, a so-called Kelvin wave that can raise sea levels by up to a foot (30 centimeters).

Also known as a “coastal trapped wave,” the massive swell of water up to 18 miles (30 kilometers) wide creates higher seas, aggravating already heightened threats to the coast.

“All of these factors are kind of combining at the same time, and the majority of them, of course, are influenced by fossil fuel–driven climate change,” Alessi said.

“Overall, it’s just a very dangerous situation for the West Coast,” he added.

Who’s behind this story?

Andrew Zinin

Master’s in physics with research experience. Long-time science news enthusiast. Plays key role in Science X’s editorial success.

Full profile →

© 2026 AFP