Chris Gloninger

Two days, two records. The LA tide gauge in San Pedro hit 8.19 ft this morning, beating Monday’s 8.02 ft. Before this week, the record was 7.93 ft from 2005, in records back to 1924. King tides on top of a record El Niño and rising seas. The sand bill comes next: 3x the sand by 2050.

‼️BREAKING: LA just recorded the highest water level on record. Sound familiar? It broke a record yesterday. The old record: 7.93 ft MLLW on Jan. 10, 2005 The San Pedro gauge started measuring in November 1923.

Los Angeles just set an all-time high water record. The NOAA gauge in San Pedro hit 8.02 ft at 9:30 a.m., beating the 7.93 ft mark from 2005 (records since 1924). That’s 1.4 ft above the tide tables, with El Niño warm water stacked on sea level rise. More high tides through Wednesday.

NASA’s satellites put 2026’s El Niño beside 1997, the record holder, and NASA’s Josh Willis says this one is on track to be bigger. The first wave is already here: California tides 18 inches high, Arizona’s first tornado watch in 16 years, Colorado’s worst flood since 1911.

Newport Beach declared an emergency for a flood that hasn’t happened yet. NOAA’s winter flood odds: LA 91% day before Thanksgiving, 98% Christmas Eve. San Diego 97%. Monterey 64%. SF set an October record 1.73 ft above predicted. Tides, not storms, and they’re on the calendar.

During the late 2010s, while working at Climate Central, I asked many of my friends in broadcast meteorology across the country why they would not mention the warming climate on the air. Not preach about it, just mention it when relevant. The response was overwhelming — fear. Thread:

TONIGHT at 7:30PM ET/6:30PM CT - join us to discuss the upcoming film: Weather Under Fire. PLUS a preview of the upcoming El Nino season. We've raised $1M of funding for production and we are looking for the final $100,00 to get it festival ready!

Reminder about this event with @climatechris.bsky.social tomorrow evening, hosted by @drjeffmasters.bsky.social

Hatteras Island is cut off again. Highway 12 closed last night at Pea Island, 17 days after it reopened, second time in 26 days. $155M bridge, $43M in repairs, $30M in sand, and a $43M buyout the county passed on. 27 homes in the ocean since 2020. We keep paying to rebuild the same road.

“The best climate change documentary I’ve ever seen.” Coming from Jeff Masters, that means the world. I’m on the poster, but Weather Under Fire is much bigger than my story. Join us on Zoom this Wed, Oct 21 at 7:30 PM ET. RSVP: WeatherUnderFire@gmail.com

Hatteras Island evacuating. Ferries suspended. 15.7 ft seas off Cape Hatteras for 24 straight hours and every high tide through Thursday forecast higher than the last. Second nor’easter in 24 days, one hurricane all season. 27 homes lost in Rodanthe since 2020.

The East Coast's next storm will bring tidal flooding from Delmarva through the Outer Banks and multiple days of onshore winds this week. We discuss details, the next bout of rain in the West, and a look at an extreme weather/climate movie that Matt was a bit involved in. Below or at theeyewall.com.

Just another week of fossil-fueled weather

See my review of this great movie here, along with a link to a 7:40 pm EDT Wednesday Zoom call/fundraiser to hear from the director and star of the movie, @climatechris.bsky.social: yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/10/weat...

Monday morning RVA weather brief: Coldest morning since mid-April, but the recent weekend cold will moderate for the rest of the week. Plus — notes on a special movie coming out about climate change and what happened to my friend @climatechris.bsky.social while he was working in Iowa.

She should go be stupid somewhere else.

She said the IPCC has “low confidence” in flooding. I pulled up Chapter 11. Heavy precipitation likely increased at the global scale. Human influence likely the main driver. Flash floods more frequent and larger, high confidence. There is no low confidence anywhere in that summary.

Forget the sandbags, duct tape applied properly to an outside door does a better job of protecting against flooding! theconversation.com/duct-tape-ke...

substack.com/@chrisglonin...

$5 million in August. Red-tagged in October. 8 buildings and 13 addresses on the Long Beach Peninsula, mandatory evacuation. California is closing its own beaches. NOAA’s new outlook: Christmas Eve coastal flooding in LA at 98%, San Diego 97%.

Join us Wednesday evening! For more on the film, please read Jeff Master's blog: yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/10/weat...

Long Beach spends $1-1.5M a year moving the same sand back and forth across its own peninsula. It adds no new sand. The permanent fix is $150-350M. The city’s whole emergency reserve is $10.3M. Eight buildings red-tagged last weekend.

The best climate change documentary I've ever reviewed — Weather Under Fire — needs donations to get completed. Check out my review and please contribute to the 501c3 charity to get this great film to the finish line: donate.mazloweb.com/donate/the-w... yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/10/weat...

Wet, not white. My winter call, a day before NOAA’s: - New England active but rainy
Gulf Coast stormy, severe storms a concern
- California into the Southwest very wet, flooding possible - Strong El Niño plus a warmer atmosphere holding more moisture. Your city?

Excellent, spot on piece by @doctorvive.bsky.social over at Current Affairs.

Your first frost isn’t when it used to be. Climate Central ran 204 US cities. 179 of them now get their first freeze later than in 1970. Twelve days later on average, 70 cities at least two weeks late. It hit 90 into Indiana today, on 10/13. Reply with your city and I’ll look yours up.

Nine buildings red tagged in Long Beach, thirteen addresses unsafe to enter, and the storm never made landfall in California. The ocean was already running 12 to 18 inches above normal before it arrived. San Diego has flooded on 8 high tides this year with no storm at all.

Newport Beach flooded two days before the storm got there. Southern California is under only its second tropical storm watch ever. The ocean was already 12 to 18 inches above normal, so high tide ran 20 inches above the charts, a record for the city. Sunday is worse.

With Isaías winding down, we’re tracking Rachel and Simon in the Pacific. Tropical storms almost never reach SoCal because the cold Pacific tears them apart, and a warming ocean is changing that.

Three storms reach land this weekend and all three crossed water running well above normal. Isaías went depression to 120 mph major hurricane in about two days. Rachel has San Diego under only its second tropical storm watch in history. Simon should be a major hurricane near Puerto Vallarta.

FREAK WEATHER BROUGHT TO YOU BY EXXON, CHEVRON,S HELL OIL, and THE AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE.🌊🌀🌬️🛢️⛽️⛽️⛽️⛽️⛽️⛽️⛽️⛽️⛽️⛽️💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

Joined CNN to discuss Isaias. Could become a major hurricane. Gusts at coast up to 100mph, up to 7’ of surge, heavy rain and a tornado threat. Thankful for the wind shear. Gulf waters are record warm & climate change made that warmth 30X more likely. This storm could have been even worse.

The Atlantic went four months without a hurricane. The first formed this morning, headed for the Gulf. Isaías went from depression to hurricane in a day, over the warmest Gulf water on record. AND Rachel will dump heavy rain from California to Utah.

They had to move the y axis The El Niño chart topped out at 30C. The 2026 line went through the top and they extended the axis to 31. Warmest water ever measured there, and it does not peak until December. Wet California, dry Australia, probably the warmest year on record in 2027.

High tide flooding on the U.S. coast happens three times as often as it did in 2000. The tide did not change. The ocean came up. El Niño is about to add a decade's worth of sea level in a few months. That part goes back. The rest does not.

🔥🔥🔥

This is completely nuts... Do you remember the frogs in the boiling water? Hello fellow frogs 😵‍💫

I love having knowledge of the behavior of chaotic complex systems because every time I look at a climate change plot like this it’s like staring into the abyss and the abyss is staring back at me

In other words We're all gonna die!

The 2026 line ran off the top of the Niño 3.4 chart, so Climate Reanalyzer had to raise the ceiling from 30°C to 31°C. Ocean temps in the heart of this El Niño are running about 3°C above the early October average and higher than any other year on record for this time of year.

Downtown LA has hit 90 degrees 49 times this year, the most in 150 years of records. LA sits 15 miles from the ocean. The marine layer is supposed to shut the heat down at night, and the water is now too warm to do it.

About 6 inches of the water that flooded Sag Harbor last weekend was there because of us. 102 flood readings from South Carolina to Massachusetts. At 32 of them the water never would have reached flood stage without climate change.

Lincoln, Nebraska picked up 6.15" yesterday and broke a daily rainfall record that had stood since 1910. The heaviest 1% of rain events in the Midwest are already up 45% since 1958. That record didn't fall because of bad luck.

El Niño is natural. Nobody made it happen, the climate change is in increasing the starting point. But that water is just under 30°C, warmer than any day in 20 years of this record, and it set that mark in September. El Niño doesn't peak until November or December. Two months left to run.

Two more high tide cycles of minor flooding ahead, however, conditions are quickly improving. 16th highest water level recorded in Montauk, New York. It’s important to realize we have seen nearly a foot of sea level rise since 1940 and that rate is accelerating.

The evening high tide cycle, causing minor coastal flooding in Sag Harbor, New York. The morning high tide Sunday looks to rival what we saw Saturday. Wind and rain slowly begin to wind down tonight. The ocean warmth this storm is sitting over is made 40X more likely because of climate change.

A bit windy, but you can still hear me! (Kind of!) This Nor’easter is reaching its peak. Moderate to major coast of flooding & 60 mph gusts. We’ve also seen 11 inches of sea level rise since the 1940s, six of those inches have happened since 1990. This helps water reach farther inland.

I enjoyed this CBC interview for the What On Earth podcast with @johannawagstaffe.bsky.social, which also includes @climatechris.bsky.social. Recorded in New York during Climate Week. You can get through my [pretty introspective] part in the 1st six minutes. www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...