California’s latest storm brings flooding to San Francisco Bay Area

CALIFORNIA - Parts of the San Francisco Bay Area were inundated with floodwaters heightened by exceptionally high tides
on Jan 1 as yet another storm began to smack California, bringing more wind and rain to a region where a steady flow of storms since mid-December has soaked the landscape.

The storm is expected to bring heavy rain and winds throughout the state on the weekend of Jan 3 and Jan 4.

In addition to flooding in coastal areas, forecasters were especially concerned about the risk of landslides in Southern California as yet more rain falls in areas that are still saturated from other recent storms.

High tides make flooding worse in Northern California

The timing of the storm coincides with exceptionally high tides called king tides, which occur when the moon, sun and Earth align and create a stronger gravitational pull on the oceans.

Coastal flood warnings were issued for portions of Northern California, including the San Francisco Bay shoreline, which is expected to see its highest tide since 1998 on the morning of Jan 3.

Forecasters warned that the high tide on Jan 3 could be as much as 0.8m above normal.

In Marin County where low-lying areas are particularly vulnerable to high tides, flooding inundated some businesses on Jan 2 before receding a few hours later.

Ms Melissa Schwartz, who works at The Junction Beer Garden in Mill Valley, just north of San Francisco, said the restaurant had prepared by lining the building with sandbags.

King tides are always noted in employees’ work calendars because of the risk they present to the creekside business, she said; it flooded during one event a few years ago.

On the afternoon of Jan 2, county workers were sandbagging the creek to prepare for more flooding on Jan 3, she said.

The business was open on Jan 2, though customers coming from San Francisco were having trouble reaching the restaurant because a nearby freeway off-ramp had been closed because of standing water, she said.

Ms Laine Hendricks, a spokesperson with Marin County, said the flooding was less severe than expected because it had stopped raining by the time the king tides hit on Jan 2.

Over the past few days, the county had also been clearing drains of debris and testing pump equipment to prepare for floods, she said.

“Thankfully, the rain tapered off overnight,” she said in an email. “It’s not as bad as it could have been.”

Ms Mary Press, who works at a veterinary hospital in Corte Madera, said clients were having a difficult time accessing the clinic because a nearby highway off-ramp was blocked off because of standing water. A gym across the street had closed early because of flooding.

The clinic is near a creek that feeds into the San Francisco Bay. “We get floods on a regular basis,” Ms Press said. “It’s been going on for years.”

In rural Humboldt County near the Oregon border, local officials urged people to avoid an area around Eureka, where high tides were also causing flooding.

Forecasters warned heavy rain would continue through the weekend in the Bay Area. San Francisco could see wind gusts of up to 80kmh on Jan 3, and the city is likely to record 3.8c, of rain through the morning of Jan 5.

San Francisco has already recorded 24.5cm of rain since Oct 1. That is a little more than normal for this time of year, but not nearly as drastic an overshoot as in Southern California, where four times the usual amount of rain has fallen.

More Rain Coming to Waterlogged Southern California

California receives most of its annual rainfall in the winter, but it has been an especially wet few months in Southern California. Since Oct 1, Los Angeles has recorded nearly 33cm of precipitation, more than it would typically see this time of year.

At least another2.5cm is expected from the storm on Jan 3 and Jan 4.

That has led to widespread flooding, as cities struggle to manage the precipitation from one storm before the next hits.

This next system is poised to push into Central and Southern California on Jan 3, bringing a risk of flooding, rockslides and mudslides. Winds could knock over trees in soil made more unstable by the saturation of recent storms.

Downtown Los Angeles is predicted to receive up to 2.5cm of rain, but up to 15cm could fall in the coastal mountains of Southern California.

Mr Mike Wofford, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Oxnard, California, said that while many of this season’s storms have hit an area between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties, this one would likely be more focused to the north, including San Luis Obispo County.

Rain on Jan 1 in San Diego was so significant that roads in some neighbourhoods flooded quickly enough that water poured into businesses and homes, and parked cars began floating away.

As rain pelted the region, teams rescued people who were stranded in their cars by rapidly rising floodwaters.

In Los Angeles, the annual Rose Parade was soggy for the first time in years. On the morning of New Year’s Day, spectators crouched under umbrellas and wore ponchos as they watched colorful floats, mariachi bands and dancers go by.

About 1 in 10 New Year’s Day holidays in the Los Angeles area see some rain, but it is typically less than 1.3cm. Before 2026, the last time it had rained more than 2.5cm here on New Year’s Day was in 1934, according to the weather service.

For some, the rain on the parade, which was established in 1890 to showcase LA’s famously mild weather, felt like a bad omen – yet another sign of how the city is being reshaped by extreme weather.

In early January 2025, the city had recorded only 0.4cm of rain since October, and the dry weather had fuelled some of the most catastrophic fires in the city’s history.

“Not only did the gods create fire in 2025, they’re actually raining on our literal parade,” said Dr Fernando Guerra, a professor at Loyola Marymount University. NYTIMES