Pacific Ocean Breaks Its 21-Year High-Tide Record by About One Inch, Celebrates by Flooding the Balboa Fun Zone Without Buying a Ticket

Southern California learned Monday that the most dangerous thing in a beach town is not the sharks, the surfers, or the parking. It is the ocean, which got bored of the beach and walked up the street to shop.

The San Pedro tide gauge in Los Angeles Harbor read 8.02 feet Monday morning, an all-time record at a gauge keeping score since November 1923. The previous record, 7.93 feet, had stood since Jan. 10, 2005. So the Pacific, the largest body of water on Earth, broke a 21-year record by roughly one inch. That is not a flood. That is a personal best. Somewhere a tide gauge is being congratulated by officials on tiptoe.

Newport Beach did not wait to be impressed. The tide there hit 8.3 feet and surged onto the Balboa Peninsula, flooding businesses in the Balboa Fun Zone, which finally lived up to its name for one demographic: fish. Crews pumped out knee-high water, the only depth at which Californians admit a problem exists.

The city had prepared. "We saw about 25,000 sandbags go this weekend," spokesperson Georgia Rios told the Los Angeles Times. That is a beach town returning the beach to the ocean one bag at a time, hoping for store credit.

Then came the true sign of the apocalypse: Newport Beach suspended parking enforcement through Wednesday evening, and police urged residents to "move your vehicle to higher ground if needed." In Orange County, the parking ticket has survived earthquakes, wildfires and three recessions. It took the moon to get one waived.

Because yes, this is the moon's doing. Forecasters blame a full moon, El Niño, a marine heat wave, a Kelvin wave, and an astronomical alignment that happens once every 20 years. That is not a forecast. That is a heist crew. Everyone has a specialty. The vault is Long Beach.

The weather service warned that coastal communities "should expect shallow flooding of harbor walkways, beach parking lots and bike paths," the most Southern California casualty list ever assembled: the stroll, the park, and the ride. Metrolink also suspended some Orange County Line trains, making the ocean officially more reliable than public transit, which, to be fair, it has been since the Pleistocene.

In La Jolla, the sea reached 7.75 feet, just shy of the record. "That's very close to the record at the station," said National Weather Service meteorologist Chandler Price. "At this rate, considering we're expecting higher tides tomorrow, we could break it." Only a meteorologist can describe the ocean entering your living room in the voice of a scout watching a promising rookie.

Florida, never outdone at water where it should not be, set tidal records in Miami on four of the last five days, a streak University of Miami researcher Brian McNoldy said could reach "an unprecedented 10 days." California has one record. Florida has a subscription.

And there is a sequel. Scientists warn of even higher tides around Thanksgiving, Christmas and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the ocean RSVPing to every holiday like a cousin who heard there is a pool, then became the pool.

Tuesday, Los Angeles Harbor could hit 8.1 feet. A record that stood for 21 years may last 24 hours. The Pacific broke it by an inch. It plans to take a mile, and it has already found free parking.