El Niño on the Oregon Coast
Wed, Oct 28
|Hatfield Marine Science Center Oregon St
Join us Wednesday, October 28, as Peter Ruggiero of Oregon State University and Jonathan Allan of the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries discuss what past El Niño events have taught us about erosion, flooding, waves, and changing shorelines.
Time & Location
Oct 28, 2026, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Hatfield Marine Science Center Oregon St, 2030 SE Marine Science Dr, Newport, OR 97365, USA
About the event
El Niño on the Oregon Coast: Higher Water, Bigger Waves, Changing Shores
For more than four decades, El Niño events have shaped our understanding of coastal hazards along the Oregon coast.
Previous major El Niño winters have been associated with elevated water levels, anomalous wave conditions, shoreline erosion, and widespread coastal impacts, establishing a strong link between Pacific climate variability and coastal hazards of erosion and flooding. With forecasts suggesting the potential development of very strong El Niño conditions during the coming winter, we are once again evaluating the vulnerability of beaches, dunes, infrastructure, and coastal communities to climate-driven coastal hazards.
In this talk, the speakers will discuss what happened in previous events and what we might expect this upcoming winter. They will also synthesize several recent studies tracing how large-scale climate variability translates into coastal hazards and how we plan on using the developing 2026–27 El Niño to test…