NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — King Tides are expected to impact the North Myrtle Beach area from Thursday, April 16, through Monday, April 20, with peak effects occurring overnight on Saturday and Sunday.
These elevated tides can cause flooding in low-lying areas of the City of North Myrtle Beach and other Grand Strand beaches.
Homeowners in flood-prone areas are encouraged to secure outdoor furniture, garbage cans, and other loose items to prevent them from being carried away or damaged.
Residents and visitors should anticipate typical King Tide impacts in the area. While some side streets may experience water over the roadway, widespread flooding is not anticipated at this time, based on current forecasts.
Motorists are urged to avoid driving through flooded streets. Even at low speeds, vehicles can create a wake that pushes water into nearby homes and properties. Please treat flooded streets as “No Wake” zones to help reduce further damage.
If a road is blocked with barricades or cones, do not drive around them, as there may be a safety hazard beyond the closure.
The City will continue to monitor forecasts and provide updates as needed.
About King Tides:
King Tides occur when the orbits and alignment of the Earth, Moon, and Sun combine to produce the highest tidal effects of the year. These unusually high water levels can lead to localized tidal flooding.
When the Ocean Climbs the Dunes: A Grand Strand Guide to King Tides
Anyone who tried to reach the pier in Garden City Beach during the second week of October 2025 knows the feeling. Streets turned into shallow rivers, parked cars stood hubcap-deep, and shop owners wielded squeegees against water that had no business indoors. This wasn’t a hurricane. It wasn’t even a tropical storm. It was a king tide, amplified by a nor’easter — and for coastal South Carolina, scenes like this are becoming a familiar autumn ritual (Post and Courier, 2025).
For visitors planning a Myrtle Beach trip and the residents who call the Grand Strand home, understanding king tides is no longer optional. These predictable, naturally occurring events are reshaping how beachgoers plan their days and how communities plan their futures.
What Exactly Is a King Tide?
First, a bit of vocabulary housekeeping. “King tide” isn’t a scientific term at all — NOAA’s National Ocean Service describes it as a popular label for exceptionally high tides that line up with a new or full moon (NOAA, 2025). The phrase originated in Australia and the Pacific, where observers wanted shorthand for the year’s biggest water levels, and it spread to North America over the past two decades.
The physics behind them is straightforward. Tides are driven by the gravitational pull of the moon and sun on Earth’s oceans. When the sun, Earth, and moon align during a new or full moon, their combined pull produces what scientists call a spring tide. When that alignment happens while the moon is at perigee (its closest approach to Earth) and Earth is near perihelion (closest to the sun, around January 2), the result is a perigean spring tide — the highest tides of the year (California Sea Grant, 2024).
In other words, a king tide is a spring tide wearing a crown.
What King Tides Look Like on the Grand Strand
Charleston’s harbor sees an average high tide of roughly 5.5 feet, but a king tide can push that to 7 feet or higher, according to the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services (SCDES, 2026). That extra foot and a half doesn’t sound dramatic on paper, but anyone who has watched Atlantic Avenue vanish in Garden City Beach knows that a small vertical rise translates into a lot of horizontal water.
Locals already know the trouble spots. Cherry Grove in North Myrtle Beach, the causeway into Garden City, Murrells Inlet, and Pawleys Island reliably show up in coastal flood advisories whenever a king tide rolls in (WMBF News, 2025). During October 2025’s event, the National Weather Service forecast minor flooding at 7.5 to 8.5 feet as a nor’easter stacked onshore winds on top of the astronomical tide (Post and Courier, 2025). South Carolina Public Radio reported that persistent winds can transform a forecast king tide into moderate or even major coastal flooding along the Grand Strand and farther south (SC Public Radio, 2025).
A Tourist and Local’s Guide to Tide Days
If your vacation or commute coincides with a king tide, a few habits make the day easier. The City of North Myrtle Beach reminds drivers to treat flooded streets as no-wake zones; even a car moving at five miles per hour can push a damaging surge into nearby homes (City of North Myrtle Beach, 2025). Homeowners in low-lying neighborhoods should move vehicles to higher ground and secure trash cans, grills, and patio furniture before peak tide.
Tourists can treat king tides as a photo opportunity rather than a ruined day. The low tides that bookend a king tide are equally extreme, often exposing sandbars, tide pools, and shell beds that visitors rarely see. SCDES actively invites the public to photograph king tides using its MyCoast South Carolina app, turning beachgoers into citizen scientists whose images help map vulnerable stretches of coastline (SCDES, 2026).
The Bigger Picture: A Preview, Not a Crisis
Here is where king tides get genuinely interesting. The California Coastal Commission makes the point cleanly: king tides themselves aren’t caused by climate change, but they offer a living preview of what everyday high tides will look like as seas rise (California Coastal Commission, 2024). The water level that floods Waccamaw Drive once or twice a year today may, within a few decades, become an ordinary Tuesday.
That framing matters for a region whose economy runs on tourism and waterfront real estate. Photographing a flooded boardwalk this October isn’t just a social-media moment — it’s a data point. NOAA tracks the steady rise in high-tide flooding days along the Southeast coast, and cities from Charleston to North Myrtle Beach are beginning to fold those trends into drainage, road elevation, and development decisions.
When to Watch in 2026
SCDES has already released its predicted king tide dates for 2026: April 18, May 15–18, June 14–16, July 13–14, August 11–12, September 29–30, October 10–11, October 26–29, and November 24–27 (SCDES, 2026). Circle them if you live here, and glance at them if you’re booking a beach week. Check a local tide chart the morning of, respect barricades when you see them, and consider grabbing your phone when the ocean climbs higher than usual.
The Grand Strand has always been shaped by water. King tides are simply the moments when that relationship makes itself impossible to ignore.
Further Reading
- NOAA National Ocean Service — What is a King Tide?: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/kingtide.html
- South Carolina Department of Environmental Services — King Tides Initiative: https://des.sc.gov/king-tides-you-can-help
- MyCoast South Carolina King Tides Portal: https://mycoast.org/sc/king-tides
- Post and Courier — Myrtle Beach area cleaning up amid king tide flooding (Oct. 2025): https://www.postandcourier.com/myrtle-beach/news/myrtle-beach-king-tide-flood-garden-city/article_3136fd01-78b3-4f7c-aff7-f1c1e64c6711.html
- South Carolina Public Radio — King Tide event expected to enhance coastal flooding this week (Oct. 2025): https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/sc-news/2025-10-05/king-tide-event-expected-enhance-coastal-flooding-this-week
- California Coastal Commission — About the King Tides Project: https://www.coastal.ca.gov/kingtides/learn.html
- California Sea Grant — King Tides: A Cosmic Phenomenon: https://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/king-tides-cosmic-phenomenon
- City of North Myrtle Beach — King Tides Alert (October 2025): https://www.nmb.us/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1371
- WMBF News — First Alert: Coastal Flood Advisory issued for King Tides: https://www.wmbfnews.com/2025/04/28/first-alert-coastal-flood-advisory-issued-king-tides-comfortable-week-ahead/
