Hurricane Rachel in Southern California

The story so far

As of October 11, 2026

Tropical Storm Rachel came ashore in northern Baja California on Saturday night and by Sunday its remnants were driving a broad swath of coastal flooding, heavy rain and strong winds across Southern California and the interior Southwest. A high-end flood risk was posted for parts of southern Nevada, southwest Utah and northwest Arizona, and Las Vegas saw more than an inch of rain Sunday morning that stranded cars and closed roads. Along the coast, beaches and piers in Newport Beach were closed as water continued to run high.

The center of this story is the coastal flooding, which arrived before the storm’s core and has proved more damaging than the rain in many places. Three ingredients lined up: ocean water levels already running high this fall, morning and evening high tides, and long-period swells from Rachel. On Friday, tides were measured 14 to 17 inches above the official predictions from San Diego to Santa Monica. That extra foot of baseline water let surf from The Wedge push two blocks inland on the Balboa Peninsula, prompting Newport Beach to declare a local emergency on October 9 and keep people out of the area.

The weakest links along south-facing beaches have been giving way. In Long Beach, powerful waves ripped apart sections of the Peninsula boardwalk and chewed at home foundations; the city has red-tagged eight structures and yellow-tagged one, limited vehicle access on the Peninsula to residents, and distributed 7,600 sandbags for this event, about 15,000 across three recent storms. Some sand berms built after earlier swells were overtopped or washed out, and inspectors ordered evacuations along the 6400 and 6500 blocks of Seaside Walk as crews rushed repairs.

What makes Rachel stand out is how far north its tropical structure and impacts held together. San Diego County was placed under a tropical storm watch on Friday, only the second such alert on record for California after 2023’s Hilary. Record-warm coastal waters, roughly 10 to 13 degrees above normal, combined with a favorable upper-air pattern to reduce the damping effect of typically cold Pacific waters. The stakes now are timing and overlap: high tides around 9 to 10 a.m. and about 10 p.m. Sunday, followed by another late-morning tide Monday, coincide with lingering swells and elevated water levels, keeping the risk of road flooding and damage to coastal structures in play even as the storm weakens inland.