Florida Sea Level Rise in 2026

Florida tide gauges with records that begin before 1950 show relative sea level rising 0.91 to 1.26 inches per decade, from 0.91 inches at Fernandina Beach since 1897 to 1.26 inches at Virginia Key since 1931.

NOAA publishes them as linear relative sea level trends with 95 percent confidence intervals (NOAA Tides and Currents), and its data service lists every Florida station with the first and last month of record (NOAA CO-OPS data). Key West, with records since 1913, shows 1.04 inches per decade through December 2025. Over a shorter window the Key West rate is steeper: NWS Key West cites the NOAA 50-year linear relative sea level trend for Key West (1975 to 2025) at 3.53 mm per year, or 13.9 inches per 100 years (NWS Key West).

Reading the table takes care with record length. The century-long Florida gauges cluster near an inch per decade, while gauges with records starting in the 1990s show higher rates: Port Canaveral, with records only since November 1994, shows 2.52 inches per decade (NOAA). The Virginia Key record is combined with two earlier stations, and the Naples trend in the NOAA service still ends in December 2023 rather than 2025.

NOAA projects roughly 10 to 12 inches of additional sea level rise along the U.S. coastline by 2050, with Florida amounts varying by location, and says at least two feet is likely by 2100.

The figures Florida planners work from come from the 2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report, released on February 15, 2022 by NOAA with half a dozen other federal agencies. The report projects sea levels along the coastline will rise an additional 10 to 12 inches by 2050, with specific amounts varying regionally, mainly due to land height changes, and NOAA states that at least two feet of sea level rise is likely by 2100 (NOAA). It also finds that by 2050 moderate flooding is expected to occur more than 10 times as often as it does today, a shift from one event every 2 to 5 years to several a year in some places.

The report, the first update since the federal 2017 projections, offers sea level scenarios out to the year 2150 (the interagency technical report site); NOAA says it combines tide gauge and satellite observations with the model ensembles from the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (NOAA). Its summary adds that failing to curb future emissions could cause an additional 1.5 to 5 feet of rise by the end of this century. Scenario values for every U.S. state and territory, Florida included, sit in the report data download. For Key West, NWS says NOAA projections range from about 1.5 feet to about 7 feet by 2100 across scenarios (NWS Key West).

Section 380.093, Florida Statutes, requires local vulnerability assessments begun after July 1, 2024 to use, at a minimum, the 2022 NOAA intermediate-low and intermediate sea level rise scenarios, or the statewide projections.

The 2026 text of the statute sets the rules for any Florida county or city assessment funded through the Resilient Florida Program (s. 380.093, F.S.). All analyses must use the North American Vertical Datum of 1988. Each assessment must model at least two planning horizons tied to the statewide assessment cycle, and it must use local sea level data maintained by the Florida Flood Hub, as certified by the Chief Science Officer in consultation with the Chief Resilience Officer, with interpolation between the two closest NOAA tide gauges allowed where such local data is not available.

The statute also tells the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to update the statewide flood vulnerability and sea level rise data set with the best available information each year and to update the statewide assessment at least every 5 years, and to submit a Statewide Flooding and Sea Level Rise Resilience Plan by December 1 of each year on a 3-year planning horizon (Florida Statutes). Last verified: October 15, 2026, on the Online Sunshine website of the Florida Legislature.

Florida's statewide sea level numbers come from FDEP's Chief Science Officer working with the Florida Flood Hub, a state research center at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science.

FDEP says the Florida Flood Hub was established by the state within the University of South Florida College of Marine Science, which serves as lead institution and coordinates other academic and research partners on flooding and sea level rise (FDEP). Under s. 380.093, FDEP's Chief Science Officer, Dr. Mark Rains, worked with the Flood Hub to develop statewide sea level rise estimates that incorporate temporal and spatial variability, and FDEP says that data has been integrated into the Statewide Vulnerability Assessment and the Sea Level Impact Projection (SLIP) tool (FDEP statewide assessment page). The statewide data set also holds elevation models, critical asset inventories and flood scenario data for precipitation, land use and groundwater elevation.

A practical point for Florida residents checking a project: the assessment viewer on the FDEP page is password protected, with the password printed on the same page, and that page was last modified on October 12, 2026, according to its footer (FDEP). The statewide Florida projections do not supersede regionally adopted projections, the statute says (s. 380.093, F.S.).

High water in Florida is most likely in the fall: NWS Key West says the highest king tides come in fall and early winter, and average monthly water levels at Key West peak in September, October and November.

The National Weather Service office in Key West explains that most sunny day flooding in the Florida Keys comes with spring or king tides, the highest of the high tides, which peak around new and full moons in those months when the Earth, sun and moon align (NWS Key West). The same autumn peak in average water level overlaps the busiest part of the Atlantic hurricane season, so a passing storm can push already high tides higher, as Hurricane Ian did in September 2022. Winds blowing against the Gulf Stream can also back water up around the Florida Keys and delay its retreat.

The NWS Key West office issues a Coastal Flood Statement when the Key West tide gauge reaches 1.1 ft above mean higher high water (MHHW), a Coastal Flood Advisory at 1.6 ft and a Coastal Flood Warning at 2.1 ft (NWS Key West). Its count of months meeting the statement threshold climbed from 2 in the 1980s to 21 in the 2010s, and the four years from 2020 to 2023 already logged 18, including 6 in 2022 and 7 in 2023. The NWS notes that with higher local sea levels it takes less and less outside influence to cause coastal flooding in the Florida Keys.

Florida tide gauge trends are posted by NOAA Tides and Currents, and Florida Keys flood outlooks by NWS Key West, but two of those official pages carry dated information.

The legacy NOAA sea level trends pages state that the site will no longer be available after September 30, 2026 and point users to a new, integrated Sea Level Trends and Extremes BETA site; the legacy page was still online on October 15, 2026 (NOAA). The station figures on this page were read from the NOAA CO-OPS data service, whose Florida records run through December 2025 except Naples (NOAA CO-OPS). The NWS Key West flooding statistics stop at December 2023, so the 2024 and 2025 king tide seasons are not yet counted there, while the office posts calendar views of Key West tides for August through December 2026 with low, medium and high flood chances (NWS Key West). Last verified: October 15, 2026, on the NOAA Tides and Currents and NWS Key West websites.