1997-98 El Niño flooding in the Bay Area
In the first week of February 1998, high winds and heavy rains combined with abnormally high tides across the San Francisco Bay region. Whitecaps up to 6 feet high splashed over the Embarcadero for the first time in recent memory, U.S. Highway 101 north of the Golden Gate Bridge flooded under 4 feet of water, and hundreds of people fled low-lying homes. At Fort Point, an early-morning tide measured 5 feet above mean sea level, about 2 feet higher than gravitational forces alone would produce.
The storms caused hundreds of millions of dollars in flood and storm damage across the Bay Area in that winter season.
U.S. Geological Survey analysis of the Fort Point sea-level record traced the record highs to the 1997-98 El Niño, establishing the mechanism scientists now use to forecast such events.
The same El Niño mechanism that drove the 1998 flooding is now forecast again, and the Embarcadero is flooding once more — but this time the port has an established response playbook in place.