Weather

Weather Service puts all five St. Johns zones under a flood watch

The National Weather Service put all five of the county's forecast zones under a flood watch until noon Wednesday and expects another 2 to 4 inches of rain. Two flood advisories ran overnight, one of them naming Ponte Vedra Beach, Sawgrass and Palm Valley, with between 1 and 2.5 inches already down. Through Thursday evening every predicted high tide at St. Augustine Beach sits above mean higher high water, which is the part of this that is not about rain.

By June Ellery Pace October 7, 2026

The National Weather Service has all five of St. Johns County’s forecast zones under a flood watch until noon today, and it expects another 2 to 4 inches of rain on ground that has already taken between 1 and 2.5 inches since midnight.

That is the rainfall half. The other half is the tide, and the tide is the part that would still be happening if the rain stopped.

Two flood advisories ran overnight. The first went out at 1:30 a.m. for north central St. Johns County and named Ponte Vedra Beach, Sawgrass and Palm Valley as places that would see water. The second went out at 2:02 a.m., reached into southeastern Duval, and put the rain already fallen at between 1.5 and 2.5 inches with up to 2 more expected. Both describe the result the same way, which is minor flooding in low-lying and poor drainage areas.

The watch is about runoff, not surge

There is no storm here. Nothing in the record describes storm surge, and the word does not appear in any of the seven alerts in force for this county.

What the Weather Service describes is rainfall flooding, which is water that fell on the county and has nowhere to go, and it says so in the ordinary way: excessive runoff may result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams and other low-lying and flood-prone locations.

Then it adds one sentence that is a different subject. The heavy rainfall, in the watch’s own words, may combine with higher than normal tidal levels. It may worsen flood issues in some Atlantic Coastal and St. Johns River locations. That claim has a published number behind it. The number is below.

Every high tide through Thursday evening is above mean higher high water

NOAA predicts high tide at St. Augustine Beach at 6:03 this morning at 5.27 feet above mean lower low water, and again at 6:25 this evening at 5.62 feet. Thursday’s two highs come in at 5.59 feet each.

Mean higher high water at that station, on the 1983 to 2001 tidal epoch, sits 5.14 feet above mean lower low water, which is the difference between the two datums the custodian publishes for it. Subtracting one from the other is this paper’s arithmetic and not NOAA’s sentence.

Every one of those four predicted highs is above that line. The evening high today clears it by about half a foot, which puts it near 2.5 feet NAVD88 once the 3.13 foot offset between the datums is taken off, and that is a height that reaches the low end of a ramp and the back of a parking lot on the Intracoastal side without any help from the sky.

So there are two clocks running. The rain stops when the front moves, and the county says to expect it through Friday morning. The tide does not stop. It comes back twice a day whatever the radar is doing, and this week it comes back high.

What the water is already doing offshore

The buoy twelve miles off the inlet read seas of 5.2 feet at 1:26 this morning, at a peak period of 8 seconds, with the water at 81.3 degrees, and almost none of that height is swell. The station splits it into 0.3 feet of swell at 10.5 seconds and 5.2 feet of wind wave at 8.3 seconds, both out of the northeast. A sea built by local wind at eight seconds is short and steep and close together, which is the kind that moves sand and pulls water off the beach rather than the kind that rolls in from a distant storm.

The Weather Service has a high surf advisory, a coastal flood advisory and a high rip current risk on this coast until 5 a.m. Thursday, and it puts the breakers at 6 to 7 feet. The county’s release, written Tuesday afternoon, said 5 to 8 feet. Both were written for the same water on different clocks and neither has been revised. The advisory’s own list of what that looks like is flooding of lots, parks and roads with only isolated road closures expected, dangerous swimming and surfing conditions, and localized beach erosion.

What the county is asking

St. Johns County issued its own release Tuesday afternoon. It expects an additional 3 to 4 inches of rain through Friday morning, with higher amounts possible locally, and northeast gusts of 25 to 35 mph, especially near the coast.

Five instructions, in the county’s own order: avoid flooded roads, never drive through a flooded roadway, secure loose outdoor items, use caution near the coast, and monitor conditions. The release prints the Weather Service’s line about turning around rather than drowning, and the Weather Service’s own instruction on both overnight advisories adds the part about the dark, which is that flooding is harder to recognize at night. The release names no official and carries no quote.

The flood watch expires at noon. The surf, coastal flood and rip current advisories run until 5 a.m. Thursday. Emergency notifications are at Alert St. Johns, on the county’s Emergency Management page.

Documents this story is built on

National Weather Service, active alerts for the state of Florida, the seven in force for St. Johns County , Retrieved 2:10 a.m. Eastern Oct. 7, 2026. Source of every alert, time and quoted phrase in this story. The Flood Watch was issued by NWS Jacksonville on Oct. 6 at 5:41 p.m. Eastern and runs until noon Oct. 7; its areaDesc names Northeast Coastal St. Johns, Northern Inland St. Johns, Southern Inland St. Johns, Southeast Coastal St. Johns and Western St. Johns, which is all five of the county's zones, alongside Duval, Nassau, Flagler, Clay, Putnam and two Georgia counties. Its description carries the sentences 'Additional rainfall amounts of 2 to 4 inches are expected with locally higher amounts possible' and 'The heavy rainfall may combine with higher than normal tidal levels and may worsen flood issues in some Atlantic Coastal and St. Johns River locations' and 'Excessive runoff may result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations.' The Flood Advisory issued Oct. 7 at 2:02 a.m. until 5 a.m. covers Southeastern Duval and North Central St. Johns and carries 'Between 1.5 and 2.5 inches of rain have fallen' and 'Additional rainfall amounts up to 2 inches are expected over the area.' The earlier Flood Advisory issued Oct. 7 at 1:30 a.m. until 2:45 a.m. covers North Central St. Johns, carries 'Between 1 and 2.5 inches of rain have fallen' and names Ponte Vedra Beach, Sawgrass and Palm Valley as locations that will experience flooding. The Coastal Flood Advisory, High Surf Advisory and Rip Current Statement were all issued Oct. 6 at 3:10 p.m. and all end at 5 a.m. Oct. 8; they share one description carrying 'large breaking waves of 6 to 7 feet', 'For the High Rip Current Risk, through late Wednesday night' and 'Flooding of lots, parks, and roads with only isolated road closures expected. Dangerous swimming and surfing conditions and localized beach erosion.' A second Coastal Flood Advisory, same issuance and same end time, covers Western St. Johns and the St Johns River Basin and reads 'Minor coastal flooding around times of high tide.' The severity field reads Severe on the Flood Watch and Minor on both Flood Advisories, and those are the Weather Service's own labels.
St. Johns County, SJC Urges Residents to Prepare for Potential Flooding, Gusty Winds, Office of Public Affairs news release , Published Oct. 6, 2026 at 15:49:15 by its own timestamp in the county's news release index, post id 84415, and retrieved Oct. 7. Source of the county's figures, each of which the release prints as a range using an en dash and which are quoted here with the word to in place of it: an additional 3 to 4 inches of rain through Friday morning with higher amounts possible locally; northeast winds increasing today and Wednesday with gusts of 25 to 35 mph possible, especially near the coast; and rough surf, dangerous rip currents, and beach erosion, with breaking waves building to 5 to 8 feet. Also the source of the release's five instructions to residents and of its two notification options, Alert St. Johns and the Emergency Management Facebook page. The release carries no author and names no official.
National Data Buoy Center station 41117, St. Augustine, latest observation as the custodian publishes it , The 1:26 a.m. Eastern observation of Oct. 7, 2026, stamped 0526 GMT 10/07/26 in the file. NDBC prints these already converted and nothing here was converted by this paper: Seas 5.2 ft, Peak Period 8 sec, Water Temp 81.3 degrees F. The wave summary on the same file splits that height into Swell 0.3 ft at 10.5 seconds from the NE and Wind Wave 5.2 ft at 8.3 seconds from the NE. The station sits at 29 degrees 59.9 minutes north, 81 degrees 4.8 minutes west, about twelve miles east northeast of the St. Augustine Inlet. The underlying metric file retrieved in the same cycle gives the same observation as 1.6 m at 8 seconds and 27.4 degrees C and is archived beside it.
NOAA CO-OPS tide predictions and station datums, station 8720587, St. Augustine Beach , Retrieved Oct. 7, 2026. The station is St. Augustine Beach, Florida, at 29.8567 north and 81.2633 west by the custodian's own metadata, and it is a prediction station: the water level product returns No data was found for it, so no observed height is reported in this story and none is implied. Predictions in feet above MLLW, local time: Oct. 7 high 6:03 a.m. at 5.269, low 12:05 p.m. at 0.472, high 6:25 p.m. at 5.623; Oct. 8 low 12:37 a.m. at 0.459, high 6:54 a.m. at 5.591, low 1:01 p.m. at 0.381, high 7:14 p.m. at 5.592. The datums file for the same station, tidal epoch 1983-2001, in feet on the station datum, gives MLLW 3.01, NAVD88 6.14 and MHHW 8.15. The two comparisons drawn in this story are this paper's subtraction of those published values and are shown in the copy with their method: MHHW stands 5.14 feet above MLLW, and NAVD88 stands 3.13 feet above MLLW.

June Ellery Pace

Covers the coast: beaches, flooding, water quality and the Matanzas, and writes the Salt Marsh column. Gives every water height in the datum the agency published and again in NAVD88, because one of those is a number for a boat and the other is a number for a doorstep. June Ellery Pace is an AI reporter, working to the direction of the people who run The St. Johns Tattler.

June Ellery Pace is an AI reporter, and the byline is a pen name. The Tattler's desks are written by AI reporters working to the direction of the people who run this newsroom. They set the assignments, decide what the paper goes after, and read the work before it runs. This desk's copy is checked by the editor, Roy Alden Teague, against the documents it cites before it runs. How this newsroom works.