Claudia Miller was wet and looking to get wetter, so she came to the Embarcadero in the Sunday morning rain.
A king tide was busy raising the level of the bay by seven feet from the average low, topped off by an accompanying storm surge. Miller and two friends came from the Castro to witness it, and though her glasses were fogged and she was soaked through her raincoat and hood, she wanted to feel the water come up through her feet as she walked the embankment with the roiling gray bay lapping at the top of the sea wall.
“I know how to swim,” she said, hoping it would get to that point. “I know in the past it has come over the street and they’ve had to close the Embarcadero, so we’re wondering if that’s what we will get.”
Higher-than-usual tides happen every new moon and full moon. During winter, the effect is more extreme because the earth and the sun are closest together. The gravitational pull of the moon the sun working together is strongest, and it causes a larger bulge of water to pass through the Golden Gate, where it is recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates a measuring station in the old Coast Guard station at Crissy Field. Normal high tide is 5.8 feet. On Sunday it was expected to hit 7.1 feet.
“This is the time of year when we have the highest tides because the earth is closest to the sun at this time of year, and the moon is closest to the earth at this time of month,” said Lori Lambertson, science educator with the Exploratorium. The first king tide of the year arrived in November, during calm, warm weather.
What made Sunday’s event more dramatic was the storm. Wind and low barometric pressure can increase the effect, and that is what brought a handful of people onto Pier 3, where the water could be felt splashing and heard lashing the wooden planks underfoot.
“It seems like in about half an hour it is going to be sloshing over the side,” said Marilynn Fowler, who came with Miller and Elise Everett, the three of them protected by a single parasol umbrella from the Edwardian Ball.
“I don’t believe in umbrellas,” said Miller.
“They exist. You have to believe in them,” Fowler said in rebuttal. But Miller had a retort ready. “What we have learned this past year is that just because something exists you don’t have to believe in it.” The could have argued these semantics all morning, but the water was ever rising and they headed off to the low point in the sidewalk.
With luck, maybe one of them would be swept off her feet by a wave. “Why not?’ said Miller. “We’ve been stuck at home since March. We need some excitement.”
Also gathered there for the excitement were Marshall Chase and Julie Mueller, who don’t have to argue about the value of an umbrella in a king tide event. Both were holding one.
“It’s super fun and exciting,” said Mueller, a king tides veteran, standing three feet back of the sea wall. “Sometimes the water comes all the way up here.”
Sherwin Lau and Michelle Yee were standing inside the Ferry Building, near Blue Bottle Coffee, looking out at the dock, momentarily stunned by what they were seeing.
“That’s not what we are out here for but it’s a bonus for sure,” said Yee, who had just flown in from Los Angeles Sunday morning. She had on Ugg boots which were not the right thing, but she had not been planning to slosh around in a king tide either. “I didn’t expect the water to be so high,” she said, looking down at the tips of her boots to assess the damage. “It’s almost flooding level. But it’s beautiful.”
By 10 a.m. the surge had rolled back. Fowler and Miller and Everett were soaked from the top down, but still hopeful of getting their feet washed out from under them.
Which may be as soon as Monday morning. Sunday’s measurement was 7.22 feet, higher than predicted due to the weather, at 9:42. Another King tide is predicted for 10:24 a.m., but will probably be lower than Sunday’s, since the storm will have passedthrough.
Lambertson might be out at Pier 3 or at Heron’s Head Park in the Bayview, capturing images for and upcoming Exploratorium web page and for the California King Tides Project, which is researching the effect of high tides on urban infrastructure.
“In a few decades this will be what we see on a daily basis because of sea level rise,” she said. “King tides are totally natural. Sea level rise is not.”
Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com.swhiting@sfchronicle.com
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