Hurricane Rachel, Kelvin wave combine to bring rain, winds, coastal dangers to SoCal

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Set us as preferred Hurricane Rachel, currently spinning out in the Pacific Ocean, is expected to raise the risk of coastal flooding in Southern California and could bring widespread rain to the region at some point this weekend and early next week.Forecasters are warning that south-facing beaches such as the Long Beach Peninsula, Catalina Island and the coastline from Malibu to Ventura could be particularly at risk of flooding on account of Rachel, the latest named entrant in an unusually active, El Niño-fueled hurricane season.Also contributing to the flood risk is the arrival of a Kelvin wave, another feature of El Niño that can raise sea levels by 6 to 12 inches.

The higher the seas, the greater the threat for California’s coastline.The risks of coastal flooding is expected to peak Sunday, said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Oxnard.“It seems pretty likely that we’re going to have an additional round of significant beach erosion, especially in that Sunday time period,” Kittell said.“And some of those areas have already been impacted by the coastal flooding events and are really vulnerable, without much beach left.” California An El Niño-fueled Kelvin wave is bearing down on the Southern California shoreline, bringing with it the boosted risk of significant coastal flooding and beach erosion.Tides in Southern California are expected to be 1 foot to 1.5 feet above what would ordinarily be expected without the abnormally warm ocean temperatures wrought by El Niño.

“We could see — it’s on the table — some isolated damage issues,” Kittell said, but perhaps less dramatic than Labor Day weekend, when some homes in Malibu, Long Beach and Dana Point were heavily damaged by swells from Hurricane Marie.And all this comes as forecasters say odds are increasing that t...