High tides inundated Southern California communities with water on Monday, flooding streets from Newport Beach to Long Beach, as the region braces for days of coastal flooding from near-record or record-high sea levels this week.

As high tide peaked Monday morning, water surged from Newport Harbor onto the streets of the Balboa Peninsula, flooding some businesses in the Balboa Fun Zone. In Long Beach, residents reported flooding along Bayshore Beach, Naples and the Peninsula.

Officials in both cities had been scrambling to prepare for the tides in recent days, with crews moving sand to shore up beaches, installing sandbags and working to protect areas that have been hammered in recent months. Officials over the weekend urged residents of flood-prone areas “to take precautions now,” including moving cars to higher ground and protecting property with sandbags.

On Monday, crews in Newport Beach were working to pump out the knee-high water and reinforce sand bags along the harbor side of the Peninsula. Despite the high tide, officials had not received any reports of significant widespread damage.

Georgia Rios, a spokesperson for the city of Newport Beach, said the community heeded the city’s messaging to prepare for this week.

“We saw about 25,000 sandbags go this weekend,” she said. “We really saw the community come out. So I think a lot of the success of not having immense amount of flooding damage is due to residents taking part and grabbing sandbags for their homes.”

In at least one place in Southern California, the tide was high enough to break a record.

The San Pedro tide gauge reached 8.02 feet Monday morning, breaking the previous record of 7.93 feet set in January 2005. Water levels were exceptionally high in San Diego County as well.

In La Jolla, officials recorded the sea level at 7.75 feet. “That’s very close to the record at the station, which is 7.81 feet,” said Chandler Price, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego. “At this rate, considering we’re expecting higher tides tomorrow, we could break it.”

The record for La Jolla was set on Nov. 25, 2015, during the last “very strong” El Niño, according to the weather service. On Sunday, the seawater level reached 7.66 feet.

The National Weather Service has warned that even higher levels are expected on Tuesday.

Areas at highest risk of coastal flooding this week are Orange and San Diego counties, where the National Weather Service issued a coastal flood warning that will last through Thursday afternoon.

“Significant coastal flooding expected,” the weather service said. “Low-lying property including homes, businesses, and some critical infrastructure will be inundated. Some shoreline erosion will occur in the morning hours.”

Farther north, in Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, a coastal flood advisory was issued, and “isolated damage of structures due to seawater inundation is possible to the most vulnerable areas.”

A rare combination of threats has brought damaging swells to Southern California’s coastline — El Niño fueling an active eastern Pacific hurricane season; a marine heat wave; and an astronomical alignment that happens only once every 20 years.

Total water levels this week in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties could reach more than 8 feet above the baseline, which is defined as the average daily lowest water level observed between 1983 and 2001.

The record for the highest seawater level at Los Angeles Harbor is 7.92 feet, recorded on Jan. 10, 2005, during a weak El Niño. Projected seawater levels at the harbor could hit 8.1 feet on Tuesday and 8 feet on Wednesday, the weather service office in Oxnard said. On Sunday, the seawater level hit a preliminary high of 7.71 feet.

In Newport Beach on Sunday, the seawater already reached a high of 8 feet, city officials said. On Monday, it reached 8.3 feet, nearly 2 feet higher than what would be expected from the high tide alone. Potential seawater levels on the city’s coastline could reach 8.5 feet on Tuesday at 9:50 a.m. and Wednesday at 10:28 a.m.

Record-hot ocean-water temperatures off California are causing seawater levels to be 1.25 to 1.8 feet higher than they would be just from the movement of the moon, Earth and sun, scientists say. Ocean temperatures have been affected not only by human-caused climate change but also an El Niño-fueled Kelvin wave and a months-old marine heat wave unrelated to El Niño.

A surface temperature reading of the ocean water at Scripps Pier in La Jolla, a neighborhood in San Diego, reached a high point for the year of around 77 degrees in early August; the average maximum is around 70. On Thursday, the surface temperature there was around 73, well above the average of 66 for this time of year.

Scientists warn that coastal flooding is expected to become increasingly worse this year and into next year. Even higher tides are expected around the Thanksgiving, Christmas and Martin Luther King Jr. Day holidays — the so-called king tides that Californians expect every year.

However, these king tides will be exceptionally extreme, producing some of the highest tides because we’re near the peaks of what are known as the 18.6-year lunar node tidal cycle and the 4.4-year lunar perigee tidal cycle, which arise from small changes in the orbit of the moon and affect tide-generating forces, according to Reinhard Flick, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

If big storms emerge during those king tide events around Thanksgiving, Christmas and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, they will further worsen the coastal flooding risk, scientists warn.

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