Monday, January 5, 2026 8:27PM
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The Bay Area’s record king tides were created by the perfect timing of a couple of factors.
The first factor we have to go to outer space. We had a full moon during our king tides. On top of that, the sun, moon and Earth were all aligned and in close proximity to each other. This formation creates extra pull on our tides on Earth.
MORE: ‘Intense’ King Tides bring days of flooding, stress to Bay Area residents
North Bay neighbors were bracing for more high water and flooding Sunday, brought on by some of the highest King Tides seen in decades.
While this formation was happening, we also had an area of low pressure crossing Northern California. This also created storm surge on our bay waters.
The perfect timing of the combination of the extra gravitational pull from our moon and the storm surge from low pressure created record tidal flooding we have not seen since 1998 in the Bay Area.
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