Tides, king tides and canal conditions in Boca Raton

NOAA's Boca Raton tide station

NOAA maintains a published tide station, number 8722816, named "Boca Raton, Lake Boca Raton, Florida," at the Boca Raton Hotel and Marina, with benchmarks along the seawall and dock approaches. It was accepted in 2003 and is tied to the Miami Beach control station for its datums. For current predicted tide times, NOAA's own station page is the primary source; this site does not publish live tide predictions.

King tides in Palm Beach County

Palm Beach County's Built Environment Risk Reduction program publishes king tide watch dates each year. For 2026, the county expects high tides to come within three inches of its Action Stage on October 26 to 29 and November 24 to 27. The county is careful to say king tides are not predicted to reach its Flood Stage in 2026, but notes that sunny-day and other flooding can still happen outside those dates, and that nuisance flooding has increased roughly 50 percent over the last 20 years, citing NOAA data.

What that means for a seawall

A wall that is marginal at normal high tide can show problems first during a king tide watch window: water reaching higher on the cap, soil washing out faster through an existing joint, or a dock that floods that normally does not. If you notice new symptoms during one of the dates above, it is worth having a contractor look before the next one.

Regional sea level trend

The Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact's Regionally Unified Sea Level Rise Projection, last fully set in 2019 and reaffirmed in 2024, projects 10 to 17 inches of sea level rise by 2040 and 21 to 54 inches by 2070, measured above the year 2000 mean sea level at Key West. It is a regional planning figure, not a Boca Raton-specific prediction, and it is one reason the city's own elevation standard is written to allow a future 12 to 18 inch extension without rebuilding the wall.

After storm damage

Florida's environmental permitting rules exempt restoration of a storm-damaged seawall from a separate state environmental resource permit, as long as the work is done within a year of the damage and does not move the wall more than 18 inches waterward of where it stood. That exemption is separate from the city's own building permit, which still applies.