Last king tide hits Lower Mainland, but forecasters expecting more in January

For the second time this week, a king tide hit various parts of the B.C.’s Lower Mainland on Thursday.

“We’re experiencing higher than normal tides, driven by the sun and the moon and their gravitational pull upon us,” Alyssa Charbonneau of Environment and Climate Change Canada told CTV News.

Charbonneau said the waves didn’t reach quite as high as they did earlier this week, when the tide peaked at 5.7 metres.

“Really that highest day we saw was on Tuesday, where the king tide was combined with a surge from a low-pressure storm system,” Charbonneau said.

While the tide wasn’t as strong Thursday, the impacts of the two of them, combined with a series of winter storms were significant in certain areas.

Video taken by a North Vancouver couple shows significant flooding in the underground parking lot of their waterfront apartment building.

“It was literally tidal water, this wasn’t just fresh water from the sewage,” Trent Duff told CTV News. “This was salt water coming into these vehicles."

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Duff said the flooding began after the first king tide on Tuesday.

He said there was three feet of water in certain areas, and it even reached their storage lockers.

“I’m not sure if it’s going to be an act of God type thing for insurance companies,” Duff said. “I’m not really sure if well be covered or not.”

Charbonneau says we typically get a similar amount of these king tides each year, often between November and February.

However, what does change is their strength.

“Their impacts are much more when they coincide with our winter storms, that is the part that changes year to year,” she said.

Charbonneau says this round of king tides should be done, but that they’re predicting there will be more in January.