Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A "super" El Niño is expected to impact California’s Central Coast this winter, raising concerns about heavy rain, flooding and damaging waves.
Gary Griggs, a coastal geologist, oceanographer, and distinguished professor at UC Santa Cruz, explained, "Just like the weather changes from winter to summer, the weather also changes over many years. Several years. And we get what we now know as an El Niño every several years for reasons we don't completely understand."
Griggs added, "The weather changes. We get much more rainfall usually, which means flooding and landslides. The ocean is warmer and we tend to get bigger waves, bigger storms, often coming from the southwest instead of the northwest. And that's hit a lot of the shoreline in Santa Cruz County."
El Niño is one phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate cycle, which drives changes in temperature, precipitation, storm tracks, hurricanes, and other global climate phenomena. A "super" El Niño, officially termed "very strong" by NOAA, occurs when equatorial Pacific ocean temperatures rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above normal.
During a typical El Niño winter, more frequent and intense storms are expected to sweep through California due to a southward shift in the jet stream and increased tropical moisture, creating conditions for atmospheric rivers.
Griggs recalled the impacts of previous super El Niño events, saying, "The big things that happened, particularly in '82, '83, really big waves came at really high tide. And so places that normally are protected... places like Capitola, Real, Del Mar, Seacliff were all hammered. A lot of damage. Houses were destroyed, houses were damaged, roads were closed. And that was kind of a wake-up call to probably the biggest El Niño in half a century."
More in the link in our bio.
A "super" El Niño is expected to impact California’s Central Coast this winter, raising concerns about heavy rain, flooding and damaging waves.
Gary Griggs, a coastal geologist, oceanographer, and distinguished professor at UC Santa Cruz, explained, "Just like the weather changes from winter to summer, the weather also changes over many years. Several years. And we get what we now know as an El Niño every several years for reasons we don't completely understand."
Griggs added, "The weather changes. We get much more rainfall usually, which means flooding and landslides. The ocean is warmer and we tend to get bigger waves, bigger storms, often coming from the southwest instead of the northwest. And that's hit a lot of the shoreline in Santa Cruz County."
El Niño is one phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate cycle, which drives changes in temperature, precipitation, storm tracks, hurricanes, and other global climate phenomena. A "super" El Niño, officially termed "very strong" by NOAA, occurs when equatorial Pacific ocean temperatures rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above normal.
During a typical El Niño winter, more frequent and intense storms are expected to sweep through California due to a southward shift in the jet stream and increased tropical moisture, creating conditions for atmospheric rivers.
Griggs recalled the impacts of previous super El Niño events, saying, "The big things that happened, particularly in '82, '83, really big waves came at really high tide. And so places that normally are protected... places like Capitola, Real, Del Mar, Seacliff were all hammered. A lot of damage. Houses were destroyed, houses were damaged, roads were closed. And that was kind of a wake-up call to probably the biggest El Niño in half a century."
More in the link in our bio.
