King tides and storm surge
How high is the water?
The biggest tides of the year come between November and January. Add a storm and the bay can reach the top of the walls. Here is the water right now, what's coming, and what holds it back.
King tides and storm surge
The biggest tides of the year come between November and January. Add a storm and the bay can reach the top of the walls. Here is the water right now, what's coming, and what holds it back.
In effect now
Possible coastal flooding due to storm surge. Water levels will likely exceed highest astronomical tide.
Sunday. Peak water levels will be observed during high tide, occcurring from 10AM to 12PM local time.
Environment Canada, for Boundary Bay including Beach Grove and Coastline of Metro Vancouver incl. Vancouver and Musqueam FN. It runs to tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. A statement is for information only. It sits below Environment Canada's colour-coded alerts: watches, advisories and warnings. Read it in full
The last day and a half at Point Atkinson, the gauge Delta and Environment Canada quote. Tsawwassen has no live gauge; its tides run about 0.25 to 0.3 m lower and within a few minutes.
Pick a line and watch the water rise to it. All of these are the same gauge, so they compare like for like.
The highest reading in the last day and a half: 0.64 m above the prediction. That gap is the storm surge: low pressure and wind piling water against the coast.
What a gauge can't show is the waves. In February 2006 it was wind and waves on top of a surge and a high tide that sent water over and around the walls.
Each bar is one day's highest predicted tide at Tsawwassen, for the next twelve weeks. The dark ones are king tide days on Delta's scale. A storm on one of those is what to watch for.
The dikes, pump houses and floodboxes the Province has surveyed, and where to watch a king tide safely.
Centennial Beach, Boundary Bay Regional Park. Main public beach with parking, washrooms and a viewing tower. The day-use area flooded in Dec 2022, so watch from the upper beach or lot and obey closures.
12 Avenue Dyke Trail and viewing platform. About 2 km of wide, flat trail between 12 Avenue and Centennial Beach; wheelchair-accessible viewing platform at the west (12 Avenue) end. You stand on the dike itself.
Boundary Bay Dyke Trail at 17A Avenue. Start of the 17 km dike trail to Mud Bay; shows the farmland dike that took debris damage in 2006. Parking rules are strictly enforced.
2026
The tide table said 4.61 m. A storm surge added about 0.65 m on top. Delta put flood protection at the beach accesses on November 12.
2026
A storm arrived on a 4.96 m king tide. Delta warned of a surge peaking Sunday and Monday morning, with an elevated risk in Boundary Bay, Beach Grove and Westham Island.
Partly from news reports; not all from an official record.
Delta's report on the 2006 flood names four things arriving at once: a storm surge, strong south-east wind, a high tide and large waves. A king tide makes the first one bigger.
63 km
of dikes, seawalls and rock armour the City of Delta maintains
31
pump stations moving drainage water out past the dikes
1890
about when most of the dikes were first built; they were strengthened from 1948 to the 1980s
From the City of Delta and Environment Canada.
Tides and gauge readings: Fisheries and Oceans Canada (Canadian Hydrographic Service), in metres above chart datum. Statements: Environment and Climate Change Canada. Dikes and structures: Province of British Columbia, Flood Protection Works (2019/2020 survey), under the Open Government Licence - British Columbia. History and protection: checked Nov 14, 2026. This page is information, not a forecast for any property. For an emergency call 911; to report flooding call the City of Delta at 604-946-4141.
King tide, top band (4.9 m or more at Point Atkinson) King tide (4.7 m or more) Ordinary
Nov 26 to Nov 29
Peaks at 4.64 m at Tsawwassen on Nov 28, around 10:22 a.m.
Dec 24 to Dec 29
Peaks at 4.75 m at Tsawwassen on Dec 27, around 9:47 a.m.
Jan 23 to Jan 26
Peaks at 4.69 m at Tsawwassen on Jan 25, around 8:58 a.m.
2022
The same surge breached the dike trail by the lagoon in Boundary Bay Regional Park and flooded the main day-use area, carrying logs and sand up to 200 m inland. Delta made an emergency repair. Metro Vancouver closed the beach for debris cleanup from April 4 to 14, 2023, apart from the Easter weekend.
Partly from news reports; not all from an official record.
2022
A deep low landed on a 5.0 m king tide and broke a record that had stood since 1982. Delta had gone to Stage 3 of its flood plan for Beach Grove and Boundary Bay the day before, with portable pumps and generators in place. By noon Delta said the water had receded; crews had responded to some localized flooding.
2016
Delta opened its Emergency Operations Centre after localized flooding in Boundary Bay and Beach Grove, and sandbagged Chisholm Street in Ladner as a precaution. Three months later the Province put $550,000 toward replacing a cracked section of the Beach Grove seawall and armouring 450 m of dike.
Partly from news reports; not all from an official record.
2014
A 70-foot section of private seawall gave way under storm swells. Crews built a temporary berm, about 400 homes nearby were warned ahead of the next morning's high tide, and Delta declared a state of emergency, set to run to December 15.
2006
A surge arrived with strong south-east wind, a high tide and large waves. Seawater came over and around the seawalls and through the beach accesses, overwhelmed the sewers and flooded homes. Wind cut power to the 3rd Avenue pump station, and water that flooded Point Roberts flowed north across the border for about a day. Delta declared a state of emergency.
1967
5.23 m, half a metre above the highest the tide alone can reach there. The gauge ran from 1967 to 1978; Tsawwassen has had no live gauge since.
3.5 m
the height Beach Grove's seawall was built to in the 1970s, along about 1.2 km from 12 Avenue to 17A Avenue
1 m
of sea level rise B.C. plans for by 2100. Delta's engineering director put preparing its dikes for that at about $2 billion
$2M
from the Province in 2023 to raise the Boundary Bay dike from 72 Street to 88 Street, using fill from construction sites
250 m
of raised salt marsh planned near 96 Street, the Living Dike pilot: a test of whether a marsh can rise with the sea and take the force out of waves
Each winter Delta secures the beach accesses with lock blocks and large sandbags. During a surge, staff watch the shore and add protection, pumps and generators as needed.
