Hurricane Marie Flooded Long Beach and Seal Beach: A Southern California Wake-Up Call for El Niño Winter
Southern California woke up to something unusual on Sunday morning: rain in early September, water pooling on Ocean Blvd, and 6-to-10-foot waves slamming the coast. The source was Hurricane Marie, which never came within 700 miles of San Diego but still made the region's Labor Day weekend a wet, damaging one. As of the 2:00 PM PDT advisory today, Marie has weakened to a tropical storm about 760 miles southwest of San Diego and is expected to become a post-tropical remnant later today or Wednesday — but dangerous beach conditions along Baja and Southern California are forecast to persist for another day or two.
What actually happened over the weekend
- Coastal flooding on Ocean Blvd in Long Beach. LAist documented pedestrians walking through flooded streets on the Alamitos Peninsula, where a high tide pushed Marie's swell up over Ocean Blvd on Sunday.
- Flooding in Seal Beach. The Santa Monica Observer reported flooding in both Seal Beach and Long Beach as tropical moisture from Marie fed into the region.
- Record rare September rain. Most of LA County took on a quarter-inch to an inch of rain on Sunday, with Santa Monica-area hills exceeding an inch in places — a rare September event, per the Los Angeles Times. LAist reported roughly an inch region-wide from Marie over the weekend.
- Life-threatening surf. Waves reached 6 to 10 feet along south-facing beaches. NWS meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld told ABC News that Marie created "life-threatening" conditions for swimmers and surfers.
- Property damage and outages. The New York Post reported a tree toppling onto vehicles, beach closures from thunderstorms, and thousands of temporary power outages across the region.
The pattern that made this happen
Marie is a warm-water Eastern Pacific hurricane feeding off unusually warm sea-surface temperatures — the same signal driving NOAA's confidence in a strong El Niño winter for 2026-27. When a storm sits offshore of Baja and pumps tropical moisture northward, it doesn't need to make landfall to cause flooding. Its outer bands drop rain on dry, cracked SoCal soils that don't absorb quickly, and its swell arrives at the coast as an added surge on top of the normal astronomical high tide. Sunday's Long Beach flooding was that exact combination: Marie's swell plus a high tide.
This is exactly the setup meteorologists have been describing all summer for the winter ahead. Our California El Niño 2026-27 hub covers what the current forecast means region by region — Bay Area to San Diego — and Marie just gave the coast a preview.
Where the flooding actually hits
SoCal's flood-prone geography is well-mapped. Sunday's damage clustered in exactly the expected areas:
- Low-lying coastal peninsulas like Alamitos, Belmont Shore, Seal Beach, and Naples where storm surge and king-tide overtopping is a known problem.
- Foothill drainages across LA, Ventura, and Orange counties, where rain runoff from steep terrain concentrates into narrow washes.
- Urban low points where storm drains back up when rain arrives faster than the system can carry it away — a problem that's worse when the ground is bone-dry from a long summer, because water sheets off instead of soaking in.
Property owners in any of these zones have a decision to make right now, not in December: how they'll be ready when the next tropical brush comes through, or when the first big El Niño atmospheric river of the winter lines up on the Pacific.
Why traditional sandbags fall short in SoCal
Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, and San Diego counties do stock filled sandbags at some fire stations and public-works yards ahead of storms, but supply is limited and demand outpaces it fast when a weekend event materializes. Filling and hauling sand-based bags is heavy, slow, and dirty. When rain is already falling, it's often too late to drive across town for them.
StormBag was engineered for the household or business that wants flood protection ready to go — on the shelf, in a garage, in a storage closet — without needing a sand pile or a shovel. Each bag is a burlap sack containing a super-absorbent polymer core. Dry, it weighs about one pound and stores flat. When you soak it in fresh water in a bucket or trough for five minutes, it expands to more than 33 pounds and blocks water the same way a traditional sandbag does. One person can hydrate and position them without help. Once hydrated with fresh water, StormBags will hold back both fresh and salt water — the important distinction is that they cannot be activated in salt water, so hydrate with fresh water first.
The 10-pack and 25-pack boxes ship flat, take up minimal storage space, and stay shelf-stable for years, which is the difference between being ready for the next storm and scrambling for it.
How to know what you need
If you're evaluating flood protection for your property, our sandbag calculator takes your door or garage-opening width and the flood height you want to hold back, and returns the exact number of bags plus the right kit for the job. A typical single-door protection kit handles a 4-foot opening; garage kits are sized for one- and two-car openings. For coastal peninsulas or homes with multiple exposed openings, the calculator sizes a full multi-kit deployment.
Track what's next
Marie is winding down, but the 2026 Eastern Pacific hurricane season runs through late November, and the Central Pacific is even more active right now — Hurricane Lowell is battering Kauai today. Beyond hurricane season, El Niño's winter storm track is expected to send repeated atmospheric rivers into California from December through March.
Bookmark StormBag's Flood Watch tool to see active NWS flood warnings across the United States in real time, and monitor the National Hurricane Center's Eastern Pacific advisories for the next system.
Sources: NOAA National Hurricane Center, Los Angeles Times, LAist, Santa Monica Observer, New York Post, ABC News, KTLA. Featured image: NOAA National Hurricane Center forecast cone for Marie showing offshore track relative to Baja and Southern California.
