Follow-up: Santa Cruz Closes All City Beaches and Wharf Through Early Sunday as High Surf Warning Continues With Breakers Up to 35 Feet

The City of Santa Cruz, California closed all of its city beaches and the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf at 10 p.m. on Friday, November 13, with the closures slated to last until 5 a.m. on Sunday, November 15; in an update issued at 1:05 a.m. on Saturday, November 14, the National Weather Service office in San Francisco said the High Surf Warning remains in effect until 4 a.m. Sunday, with dangerously large breaking waves of 25 to 35 feet and occasional sets of 40 to 50 feet at favored breakpoints, and the swell expected to peak on Saturday.

GSM reported on November 12 that the weather service had issued a high surf warning for California's Central Coast with breakers up to 25 feet. The surf has since built further: the latest statement covers all Pacific Coast beaches and extends a Coastal Flood Advisory through 6 p.m. Saturday, warning that large breaking waves will run up beaches and crash over seawalls, inundating adjacent low-lying infrastructure, with high tides bringing flooding of low-lying areas, isolated road closures and coastal erosion. The weather service said everyone should remain out of the water and stay off jetties, piers and other waterside infrastructure, because waves can sweep across the shoreline without warning and pull people into the sea.

The city said the wharf is structurally sound and is being closed to keep people away from hazardous ocean conditions, with reopening dependent on weather and ocean conditions. Santa Cruz Fire Chief Rob Oatey said entering the water or approaching hazardous coastal areas puts not only the person's own life at risk, but also the marine safety personnel who may be called to rescue them. Cowell Beach, where a fin whale stranded on Thursday, has been closed since then and will stay closed until further notice.

Santa Cruz County officials issued an urgent warning for people to stay away from the shoreline, cautioning that surf and high tides could flood coastal access points and low-lying areas and force further beach and parking-lot closures, with evacuation warnings along the coast possible. In Monterey County, California State Parks has closed Point Lobos State Natural Reserve and closed or limited access at Carmel River State Beach, Garrapata Beach and Asilomar State Beach from Friday evening, with closures likely to extend through Tuesday, November 17.

The municipal wharf lost about 150 feet of its end to winter storm waves in December 2024, dropping a city worker into Monterey Bay; it reopened on January 4, 2025, but repairs took more than a year and were marked complete in April 2026. The city and county said they will keep monitoring conditions and announce any changes to the closures.

(Source: National Weather Service)

Reference: City of Santa Cruz, County of Santa Cruz

Source: National Weather Service

Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图：加州 Santa Cruz 市政码头与海滩木板路海景（资料图）。Dennis G. Jarvis 摄，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 2.0。 / Photo: The Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf and Beach Boardwalk, California (file photo). By Dennis G. Jarvis, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

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