The National Weather Service is keeping an eye on conditions that could lead to flooding in some of the lower lying areas of coastal Fernandina Beach on Tuesday.
NWS Meteorologist Kirsten Chaney says a low pressure system developing over waters off the coast of Northeast Florida could push water up onto the shore, potentially causing flooding along the First Coast.
“Right now, our forecasts for the Fernandina Beach area are showing that during the high tide cycles, it could reach into the 1.5 to 2 feet range [above normal high tide] Tuesday morning,” Chaney told WJCT News on Monday morning.
Whether that actually comes to pass depends on what happens between now and then, she added. If it does happen, Chaney says the area could see some slight beach erosion.
“This is going to be fairly quick, not like our big nor’easter events that we typically see in the Fall,” she said. “It's probably going to reach what we call an ‘action stage,’ which would be minimal impacts. But whether or not it's going to actually reach over that threshold and go into minor flooding, that's where we're still uncertain.”
The same conditions are possible in other coastal areas of Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia, but the NWS can’t be certain at this point due to a lack of data.
Chaney says flooding events like this will likely become more common along the First Coast as the climate continues to change due to fossil fuel emissions.
“With sea level rise, it certainly will be more often that we’ll be seeing this, especially with all these peak tidal cycles. You can see in Miami, there’s a lot more flooding that's occurring more frequently these days,” she said. “I've only been in this forecast area for a couple of years now, and it just seems like every time there's a full moon we get those astronomically high tides with that northeasterly wind surge coming through and pushing all that water in. So this will be impacting us a little more frequently.”
