Record high tide sets San Pedro mark; weekend rain uncertain Play

The high tide Sunday morning at the L.A. measuring station at San Pedro harbor set a record: 8 feet and a quarter inch. Monday it should be a smidge higher.

Small waves Sunday meant the high tides did not cause any substantial new damage, at least not in Malibu. In Orange County and Long Beach, a different story. Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach: closed, underwater.

Similar high tides are predicted for Monday. At least the weather is calm, and will be for the next three days.

After that, who knows? The National Weather Service says their computer models are all over the place.

There is a developing moisture plume moving in from Hawaii. It might collide with a low pressure system that could move down the coast from Oregon. Maybe.

There is very high confidence that it will rain during the weekend, but low confidence on when and how much. The current estimate calls for Malibu to get about an inch of rain, but there is a 20 to 30 percent chance that rainfall totals will be double that amount, maybe 2 inches.

And we cannot keep our eyes off the long-range forecast for high tides, and the timing. The planets and moon are lining up for 8.5-foot high tides at Thanksgiving and 9-foot high tides Christmas Eve. Any big storm on top of those celestial high tides could cause enormous damage on the California coast.