California coastal homes battered and bruised after weekend of intense waves and flooding

Waves crash into coastal homes in Long Beach, California, on Monday. Photograph: Jae C Hong/APView image in fullscreenWaves crash into coastal homes in Long Beach, California, on Monday.

Prefer the Guardian on GoogleSouthern California coastal communities are picking up the pieces after a weekend of extreme weather brought flooding that overtook city streets and intense waves battered beachside homes.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel hit Mexico’s Baja California over the weekend as well as southern California and Las Vegas. While meteorologists noted that Rachel weakened into a post-tropical cyclone as it approached California, it still left a trail of destruction.

Filmagens mostraram ondas enormes batendo nas casas de Long Beach, destruindo um calçadão e forçando os moradores a fugir. Os danos às casas foram significativos, deixando algumas em risco de colapso.

Ondas da tempestade tropical Rachel destroem casas à beira-mar - loop. Pelo menos nove foram consideradas inseguras para entrar, informou o Long Beach Post, significando que os residentes deslocados não podem retornar para recuperar itens pessoais.

Farther south, the city of Newport Beach declared a local emergency and briefly closed piers to “protect public safety”, citing “higher-than-normal surf” that inundated streets.

By Monday, cleanup work was under way and Newport Beach had reopened the piers, but officials advised residents to exercise caution near the water.

In Las Vegas, a raging torrent of water rushed over a street near the strip, and the city tied an all-time daily rainfall record for October with 1. 08in (2. 74cm) of rain into Sunday morning, according to the US National Weather Service.

Os impactos são apenas um vislumbre do que está por vir na região sul da Califórnia, enquanto um histórico El Niño se desenrola no Pacífico, ameaçando desencadear tempestades severas em toda a região neste inverno.

Ver imagem em tela cheia Ondas atingem casas e um muro de contenção em Long Beach em 12 de outubro de 2026. Fotografia: Mario Tama/Getty Images Já, os últimos cinco furacões no Pacífico atingiram status de grande e apresentaram ventos de pelo menos 111 mph (178).

6 km/h), and one set a record for time spent at category 5.

The El Niño climate phenomenon, characterized by warmer than average equatorial sea surface temperatures, has the potential to supercharge extreme weather around the world.

While it’s expected to strengthen through the end of this year and into next, the excess warmth already measured is climbing off the charts. Forecasters have warned its effects could become exceptionally destructive.

Em Califórnia – especialmente na parte sul do estado – El Niños normalmente trazem riscos maiores de tempestades severas, e com eles ameaças elevadas de deslizamentos de terra, fluxos de detritos e inundações repentinas.

These dangers become more pronounced around recent burn scars, adding hazards to several areas, including in the neighborhoods still recovering from the 2025 Los Angeles firestorm and swaths of Big Sur above Highway 1.

View image in fullscreenAn emerging El Niño and oceanic Kelvin wave moving up the coastline have compounded conditions in the California region. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images“This year’s tilt in the odds toward wet and stormy conditions in California will be profoundly unsubtle,” climate scientist Daniel Swain said in a recent analysis, adding that its unlike anything he’s observed before.

Throughout the winter months, El Niño could also add an additional foot of sea level rise in California on top of the 8in to 12in caused by the climate crisis over the last century, according to Michael Anderson, a state climatologist.

Já o El Niño elevou os níveis do mar ao longo da costa da Califórnia, desde a fronteira do México até a Região da Baía de São Francisco. Águas quentes se expandindo a partir de uma onda de calor marinho extrema, combinadas com uma onda Kelvin retida na costa – uma grande faixa subaquática de água quente – já inundaram partes do litoral norte-americano.

More Kelvin waves are likely and California is already bracing for unusually high king tides to hit during holiday weekends this year, arriving near Thanksgiving and Christmas.

While the impacts from heavy rains and high surf are each destructive in their own right, when they align and overlap they can cause even more calamity.

Ver imagem em tela cheia Ondas atingiram um calçadão em frente a residências em Long Beach, Califórnia, em 10 de outubro de 2026, enquanto a tempestade tropical Rachel se aproxima.

Fotografia: William Liang/AP “Entre novembro de 2026 e janeiro de 2027, eu antecipo múltiplos eventos significativos de inundação costeira que serão mais graves em severidade e também muito mais generalizados do que o que estamos vendo atualmente,” disse Swain.

Meanwhile, as cities across California begin preparations for intense winter weather, there are still months left before the risks from fire begin to subside. The National Weather Service issued fire weather watches for parts of southern California, including in Los Angeles, as seasonal strong, dry winds align with high temperatures.

Forecasters warned that there would be “high risk for extreme fire behavior with any new fire starts Thursday through Friday”.

With the threat of fire, heat and sea level rise colliding, as the state readies for more incoming effects from El Niño, Kevin McGowan, the director of LA’s office of emergency management, urged residents to be ready.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.