Major high tides threaten more Malibu beach erosion Play

More significant beach erosion is in the forecast for Tuesday, with one more day of high surf. High tide Tuesday night will officially crest at 7.2 feet above mean sea level at 8 p.m., but the high tides have been running about one foot higher than the official forecasts.

Those forecasts don't take into effect the Kelvin wave — the effect of El Niño water that's being shoved up against the South American coast and spreading northward. Also, ocean temperatures right now are more than 10 degrees above normal. Saltwater expands and causes higher tides under those conditions.

The National Weather Service predicts more significant beach erosion will occur Tuesday from Oxnard all the way to Long Beach, including Point Dume and Point Mugu.

Monday the Point Dume area was the area of most concern. Waves of 12 feet were arriving on top of high tides running one foot above normal. Westward Beach in front of the Sunset Restaurant is all but gone. The toll booth entrance station at the Point Dume Beach entrance is now within 15 feet of a cliff that drops eight feet to the ocean. Same story for the road at the turnaround in front of the Sunset Restaurant — the fire hydrant now sits within 15 feet of the churning high tide.

At Westward Beach Road at Free Zuma a little to the west, there's only about 20 to 30 feet of beach left before the sand cliff drops eight feet down to the high tide line. Channels cut by rainwater over the weekend carved through this vertical sand cliff of six to eight feet high.

High tides at Zuma Beach every night pushed water over the sand at the water's edge, causing ponds between the oceanfront sand and the cement beach wall.

West of Malibu, Caltrans was running snowplows back and forth at the giant sand hill at Thornhill Broome Beach, shoving aside the rocks and sand. Cars parked along the oceanfront rocks were getting lashed by waves shooting water 15 feet into the air. The CHP was there to slow cars down, but the road remained open.

Also, an entire bluff in one section of Sea Level Drive may have eroded back. This may become a major problem — one of the first along the Malibu coast where houses have lost most of the sand in front of them. Malibu's beaches have survived so far, cut up and diminished, but most of them are still there. The one big exception is at Point Dume.

Here in Malibu, there were some sort of emergency repairs going on Monday on Pacific Coast Highway eastbound on the ocean side at La Costa Beach. We don't know at this time what that was all about. Although the ocean side of PCH is a mess, the land side came through more than an inch of rain unscathed.